Should religious organisations remain tax-exempt?

curiousnathan

curiousnathan

Starry-eyed
    • 7,725
    Posts
    15
    Years
    In some countries religious organisations such as churches remain tax-exempt for many years. Is this fair? Should churches pay their fare share financially to the community? Is the collection of money by religious organisations considered theft if it is not taxed?
     
    I'd say no, they shouldn't, explicitly because I don't understand the point of exemptions in the first place- Religions shouldn't be for profit anyway so why should they be exempt from taxes? What purpose is it supposed to serve?

    "Religions" like Scientology show of fairly well the dangers of the tax exemption and what can sprout up to take advantage of both them and vulnerable people
     
    If they are providing a charity service, if they're a not-for-profit setup, they should have the normal exemptions that charities do. If they're making a profit then they should have to pay taxes like everyone else.
     
    Separation of church and state. Lets not tax religious organizations, which dont even profit anyways. If churches profit, they are fraudulent (I've never heard of a church that charges membership fees or try to profit off donations). Though I think many charge for wedding ceremonies, which makes sense because they are expensive.
     
    BadSheep said:
    Separation of church and state. Lets not tax religious organizations, which dont even profit anyways. If churches profit, they are fraudulent (I've never heard of a church that charges membership fees or try to profit off donations). Though I think many charge for wedding ceremonies, which makes sense because they are expensive.
    Click to expand...

    There's scientology, who directly profit off their members, and religions like the LDS church that do things like take a portion(percentage?) of the wages of it's members, even the catholic church owns its own religious bank that is partially exempt from certain laws due to it's ownership.

    "For profit" is hard to quantify really but when the money received is more than what they're spending on upkeep and wages then i'd say that becomes profit, as it does go towards expansion of religious buildings in quality and quantity ect

    I don't think anyone would argue that Scientology isn't a fairly open example of monetary scam with cult-like tendencies though
     
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top