Do you think Churches should be taxed?

[ponderingturtle]

OMG you mean they have to fill out a form?? The Horror. A 990 is not a tax, a fee or a charge. It's nothing but a declaration of purpose. Another piece of bureaucratic paper. BFD It's a non-issue

No it isn't. It is about how much an individual can verify where the money that they are taking in is going. Church's are the only non taxed(plenty are certainly for profit) entity that does not need to make information about their finances public.

True not discrimination by religion would be having religion never mentioned in the tax code period. It would then get neither positive or negative discrimination.

 

[drkitten]

I am not sure I totally agree with that definition. What about say something that runs a historic land mark site? Should that be a non profit organization or not?

"History" being a recognized academic field, I think that would have no problems qualifying as "educational," under the same terms as Harvard University or the Museum of Natural History. Of course, I put the additional qualification in that if you are running the historic landmark site, it needs to be benefiting the public, so you can't just lock the building away and only let "the failthful" in. (Under this definition, St. Paul's Cathedral in London is probably a historic landmark; the Mormon temple in SLC, UT would not be, because gentiles are not allowed in.)

 

[drkitten]

No it isn't. It is about how much an individual can verify where the money that they are taking in is going.

Bingo. If I donate money to the Red Cross earmarked for distaster relief, the Red Cross is obligated to use that money for that purpose. If I give money to Harvard University to buy scholarships for minority students, they need to spend it on minority students. If they don't, they are criminally liable (for fraud) and civilly liable to me. There are a number of cases out there where people have successfully sued to have donations returned because the organization has misused their funds.

Faith-bsed organizations are, for the most part, the only types of non-profits for whom the public has no such assurance. If I give money to Harvard, I know where the money goes -- they have to tell me. If I give money to Boston College (a "faith-based" college), however, they can spend the money however they like and there's not a damned thing I can do about it. "Well, drkitten did specify that this money should be used to create a new department of Feline Studies. But we're going to use it all to re-guild the chapel. Bwahaha. What can they do, sue us?"

In simple terms, I can't even check out how "efficient" the charity is. Personally speaking, I refuse to donate to the United Way (a fact that ticks off my dean to no end every year, I assure you). Their overhead is simply too high; last time I checked, about eighty cents of every dollar donated goes to salaries and administrative overhead, so I need to donate a fiver to make sure that a single dollar gets to the charity of my choice. I'd rather simply send the fiver directly than buy new carpet for the local United Way chairman.

This information can be gleaned from forms like the 990. The local secular food bank is volunteer-run and staffed, and something like 97 cents on each dollar goes to feeding the homeless. I know this because they told me so on the 990. There's also a local Catholic homeless shelter that runs a soup kitchen, and I have no idea how much money they spend on food, because they don't tell me -- and they don't have to.

I think that "licence to commit fraud" is a pretty big difference in the way that groups are treated.

 

[ponderingturtle]

"History" being a recognized academic field, I think that would have no problems qualifying as "educational," under the same terms as Harvard University or the Museum of Natural History. Of course, I put the additional qualification in that if you are running the historic landmark site, it needs to be benefiting the public, so you can't just lock the building away and only let "the failthful" in. (Under this definition, St. Paul's Cathedral in London is probably a historic landmark; the Mormon temple in SLC, UT would not be, because gentiles are not allowed in.)

But is that an external charitable effort?

You placed a strong emphasis on external in this

ANY non-profit organization must spend at least X% of its annual income or Y% of its total assets, whichever is greater, on external charitable activities

 

[drkitten]

But is that an external charitable effort?

You placed a strong emphasis on external in this

... which I defined with some examples that explicitly included "education."

including things like direct charity, education, cultural activities, etc.

The key is that the education must be "external"; i.e. it's to educate the public generally. The "pay for drkitten to get a fourth Ph.D." foundation that I run wouldn't be valid, nor would the "pay to fix drkitten's house" foundation, but the "pay to restore drkitten's childhood home so everyone can tour it and marvel at the childhood of such a cool and hoopy frood" foundation would be.