Should churches pay taxes?

Couldn’t they income tax the preacher?

>go maximum Soviet Union on them first.
So kill as many as you can?

Yes. All churches must pay the jizya or they will be torn town inshallah.

Evangelicals make a mockery of Christianity, yet again

Taxing a religion is basically persecution. Along with people starting to raise and lower, which would be a violation of the constitution's protections of religious groups.

Donations retard. Double taxation is a big no no

Noooo. Such a holy organization, so many faiths.

youtube.com/watch?v=35K6vQRt67g

That plane was more than 3 million.

Also lol he wears a bomber jacket as though he wouldn't immediately crash that thing if he tried to fly it himself

No. No one should pay taxes.

>you'd have to go maximum Soviet Union on them first.
Let's do this

They should be run by the state like in Germany.

If Jesus and his apostles could see the commercialization of his religion in the modern day, what would they think? Would they be horrified?

>American protestants

What is it about America that gave birth to this kind of bullshit? Just unlimited religious freedom and tax exemption for religious cults? Even at the worst times of corrupt popes and simony they still maintained apparacences and wouldn’t have been this brazen about their profiteering of religion.

What do you mean? If you're part of the church (either catholic or EKD) you pay a bit of taxes, that go to charities or keeping the churches from collapsing. If you don't want to pay the taxes, you can just leave the church and burn in hell. The churches aren't run by the state.

No, but his congregation should find a new place to worship and he should be ostracized

There is literally nothing wrong with this. This is capitalism which is most compatible with human nature. If people wanted to give him money that is what they want and its their choice. Fuck off commies.

He’s supposed to be a religious leader, not a business man.

>In Catholicism: none of the clergy owns all that fine shit. It's basically community property they all share anyway. Meanwhile Protestant McChurches always have some billionaire CEO-Pastor who is making money off of you directly.
Seems you don't live in a Catholic country then, everything you described is present in Poland but worse.

As opposed to religious people who spent their lifetimes getting money and sharing almost none of it with the needy? Or religious monarchs, who receive enormous pensions just because they were born that way, while making no effort to improve the world in any way?

>It's okay to scam naive old people guize, it's just human nature!

>It's okay to drag an 8 year old girl into a back alley, rape her and cave her skull in with a shovel guize, it's just human nature!

No. Churches do more in-place local charity with the money they do not pay in taxes than the government ever could.

That's why they're tax free in the first place.

>you'd have to go maximum Soviet Union on them first.
Sounds good to me, when can we start?

>That's why they're tax free in the first place.
If you're a fellow American, you have a gross misunderstanding of our nation's history. They're tax exempt to ensure no particular sect has influence over the government or motivation to enter the political arena. Additionally, there was concern that minority sects could be taxed in a way that is more or less persecution if an antagonistic sect were to take power or have large sway over policy.

wtf I support taxing churches now

The Soviet Union did a good job

Prosperity gospel. It's not really part of every protestant denomination in the US, but this is perfectly in keeping with what they're saying, which is basically wealth and fortune is a sign of divine providence.

These men are essentially really impressive con men who use quirks in human psychology to give the attendees a sort of "high" by working up a crowd and using the momentum they've built to convince people of whatever they want, similar to hypnosis. The same thing occurs in other churches and organizations as well, but Megachurch pastors have it down to a science.

I'll agree with you as far as why churches were given tax exemptions, but I got to say, there's only so much you can do to prevent them from having influence over the process. Even after the laws in place during the rise of Coughlin, churches still exert pressure over their members and have clear stances on issues which influence the way people vote, though they are prevented from integrating directly into the political process.

When you get down to the core, churches are essentially an ideology packed up into an organization people are members of, and while they might not have stances on all issues, there's always a few that's going to influence how their members behave. Or rather their members join because they think the same way.

Yes, provided they don't prove they pay money and perform charity with it

Evangelical churches are a big money laundering scheme

Unironically, Jews. Joel Osteen is a Jew too.

They should be allowed to levy tax

Why can't he enjoy life?

Because using money that is meant to help the less fortunate to improve your quality of life goes completely against Jesus's teachings

>capitalism which is most compatible with human nature
Human nature is to establish guilds and protectionism like they did for 90% of Human history. Capitalism is Mammon worship.

No one should be forced to pay taxes.

And Christianity teaches that human nature is evil.

where?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature#Fallen_human_nature

Just say the word

Megachurches should since they're nothing more than businesses.
Normal churches are actually not-for-profit, ya fedoras.

Man should rise above his baser nature, or at least aspire to.

It's your understanding that is at fault here, not mine.

Your proposition is that churches are not taxed to make sure no particular religion is overly influential towards the government, and/or to stop any influential religion from persecuting an "antagonistic" sect.

Read any federalist paper on the issue and you will find that the reason the state does not tax the church is because the state have sovereignty over the church, and thus cannot tax it.

Read some American history prior to holding yourself out as an American history buff. Look less ridiculous in the future.

Word to the wise.

*the state does not have sovereignty over the church*

The heart of man is endlessly wicked; who can know it?

Ideological vs practical definition on the matter. Yeah, the state doesn't have sovereignty over churches, but it could decree that any buildings/etc on their land would be subject to taxes, or any number of other taxes that private citizens/businesses have. Practically speaking, you don't do this because it's one of the few threats you can hold against large ideological bodies to keep them from entering in the political arena any more than they're already there.

Absolutely. If they get any exemptions it should be the same rules that apply to charities.

>It's human nature to rape people so rape is ok!

Churches should be folded into other corporate entities, and follow the same rules for determining whether their status is as a taxable corporation or a non-taxable nonprofit/charitable corporation that all other corporate entities follow.

Nonsense, you imply that churches would all suddenly become "single issue voters," and you also sort of imply that religious organizations are not already heavily involved in politics.

>Trust me

Whenever somebody makes that their central argument, I break out in hives.

Are we talking the US here? Pastors already pay tax on their income.