I ran across this article entitled “33 Pastors Flout Tax Law With Political Sermons”. It says:
“Defying a federal law that prohibits U.S. clergy from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, an evangelical Christian minister told his congregation Sunday that voting for Sen. Barack Obama would be evidence of 'severe moral schizophrenia.'”
The article continues:
“The Rev. Ron Johnson Jr. told worshipers that the Democratic presidential nominee's positions on abortion and gay partnerships exist 'in direct opposition to God's truth as He has revealed it in the Scriptures.'”
Churches are, in essence, businesses selling a product; dogmatic beliefs. An author who writes a “self-help” book based on beliefs pays taxes. Political activists who author books based on beliefs pay taxes. Should churches, as profitable institutions, pay taxes?
One reason commonly given for tax-exempt status for churches is that taxation carries the capacity for a tool of oppression. One would be hard-pressed to support the argument, however, that churches are unique in terms of such oppression as compared to other institutions or to individuals. Additionally, the style of oppression unique to churches is historically well-documented. So, why the distinction for churches?
Promoting particular candidates for public secular office is clearly an abuse of the product (beliefs) these institutions sell. It is precisely this sort of oppression that churches have used for centuries; levying peoples' religious beliefs against them in order to garner more political power for the church, which is one of the abuses America's Founding Fathers sought to restrain with the concept of “separation of church and state”.
The previously mentioned article says, “Rev. Eric Williams, warned that many members of the clergy are 'exchanging their historic religious authority for a fleeting promise of political power...'” However, Johnson said, “...he must connect the dots because he is not sure that all members of his congregation can do so on their own.” Is it just me, or is that sounding a little Jonestown-like?
Should churches be tax-exempt?
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Yes, it seems that while we worry about oppressing the religious members of our society, many of them are conspiring to oppress the rest of us. The idea that religion might oppress a government is certainly nothing new, and secularists should start paying more attention to what is occurring.
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I'm not even terribly concerned if a church takes a blatantly political stance. In some circumstances, I hope it would. I wish more churches had stood up to Jim Crow in our country, and advocated against politicians who condoned that evil. I wish more had stood up to Hitler and Mussolini in other countries. I definitely think there is a place for partisanship in religion. If a congregation believes abortion is murder, then I don't mind if they advocate for a politician who shares that belief. That's exactly what they should do.
Getting back to taxes, where I have a problem is with the exemption from property taxes. Any institution or individual that owns property should be treated equally, regardless of its non-profit or religious status. If its neighbors in the community pay property tax, the church should, too.
If we did tax churches, they could take advantage of loopholes for "do good" programs and pay no taxes like 75% of the corporations do.
Churches have so blurred the lines that they are advocating politically from the pulpit deserve some persecution from the IRS to bring them back into line.
Church property holdings most definitely should be taxed.
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WTF? The pastors who preach about politics from the pulpit would argue, I'm sure, that the free exercise of their religion says they can say whatever they please from the pulpit. I don't know the history of why churches are tax-exempt, but I would hazard a guess that it's to prevent government from driving churches out of business.
As abhorrent as the pastors' pronouncements are, I would hate to see a situation where there are spies in each congregation who report to the government "political' speech. I mean, if a Unitarian argues that we should feed the poor, does that count?
I know I'm not helping matters here. But I just wanted to throw in my two, i mean buck-fifty's worth.
This has been a question raising serious debate as far back as 1934 and, some say, earlier.
The laws governing tax exempt organizations such as churches - or 501(c)(3) entities - do not allow either “any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office” or "carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation."
Churches were originally allowed exemption from paying into the Federal tax base because they “operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, or educational purposes."
In other words, the benefit they brought to society as a whole was viewed as something to be rewarded. In return churches (and other 501(c)(3) organizations enjoying exemption) were forbidden to use their status to seek to influence legislation or elections of candidates.
It’s often argued that some of the founding fathers believed that seeking to influence legislation and elections falls well within the scope of the authority of the Church. John Adams is cited as an example. Adams stated that, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
However, even if Adam’s views are accepted as legitimate - which is more than arguable in light of the first Amendment - it still does not allow for laws governing the taxation of religious organizations to be ignored by those organizations.
For example, if Christian churches actively endorse or encourage discussions as to whether one candidate may indeed be “the antichrist” it is obvious they’re “campaigning in opposition to” that candidate (by preying upon deeply held religious belief and fears that such a person would help usher in the end of the world).
Under the first amendment churches are free to teach such fear mongering dogma - but the law governing tax exempt organizations, as it currently reads, does not allow them to do so and also enjoy freedom from taxation.
If such organizations refuse to comply with the laws which govern them then integrity alone should demand that they, like others, pay into the tax base of the government they’re seeking to influence.
I'd bet on the successful legalization of heroin markets set up across the street from elementary schools before churches are ever going to be taxed. How about televised public abortions while we're at it?
Christ, we can barely tax rich people at this point!
As for tax issues, I'm not sure. They are like a nonprofit organization. Which is how rich people hide their money. Which are also very political funding studies, making political ads. I think everyone should pay local property taxes, except houses in foreclosure, which is a large part of the reason were in this financial mess.
Excerpt
(The entire document can be downloaded from the IRS)
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all IRC section 501(c)(3) organizations, including churches and religious organizations, are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made by or on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violation of this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise tax.
To begin with, they don’t. Isn’t that a curious thing? It sure seems like we never hear about them campaigning openly for the liberal candidate. Is that perhaps because the churches that actually do engage in these political campaigns are dishonest? Do they have some agenda that is NOT related to religious pursuits? I have to say they certainly might. This is exactly how these religions have always functioned in gaining more power. To quote the final paragraph of the post:
***** “Rev. Eric Williams, warned that many members of the clergy are 'exchanging their historic religious authority for a fleeting promise of political power...'” However, Johnson said, “...he must connect the dots because he is not sure that all members of his congregation can do so on their own.”
So, why do some engage in these activities while others do not? I would be more than willing to give up the potential of having these organization promote my candidate of choice for having them NOT promote ANY candidate.
A thought about the idea that churches are not engaged in business activities: they are. Consider that even though some of us may not realize to what extent these organizations are moving into our society on non-religious platforms, it does not mean they are not. In fact, they are. Below is a NY Times article about just this trend. I’ve included the text from the article, but also a link in case some prefer to visit the source.
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November 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/business/23megachurch.html
IN GOD'S NAME
Megachurches Add Local Economy to Their Mission
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES and ANDREW W. LEHREN
In Anchorage early in October, the doors opened onto a soaring white canvas dome with room for a soccer field and a 400-meter track. Its prime-time hours are already rented well into 2011.
Nearby is a cold-storage facility leased to Sysco, a giant food-distribution corporation, and beside it is a warehouse serving a local contractor and another food service company.
The entrepreneur behind these businesses is the ChangePoint ministry, a 4,000-member nondenominational Christian congregation that helped develop and finance the sports dome. It has a partnership with Sysco’s landlord and owns the warehouse.
The church’s leaders say they hope to draw people to faith by publicly demonstrating their commitment to meeting their community’s economic needs.
“We want to turn people on to Jesus Christ through this process,” said Karl Clauson, who has led the church for more than eight years.
Among the nation’s so-called megachurches — those usually Protestant congregations with average weekly attendance of 2,000 or more — ChangePoint’s appetite for expansion into many kinds of businesses is hardly unique. An analysis by The New York Times of the online public records of just over 1,300 of these giant churches shows that their business interests are as varied as basketball schools, aviation subsidiaries, investment partnerships and a limousine service.
At least 10 own and operate shopping centers, and some financially formidable congregations are adding residential developments to their holdings. In one such elaborate project, LifeBridge Christian Church, near Longmont, Colo., plans a 313-acre development of upscale homes, retail and office space, a sports arena, housing for the elderly and church buildings.
Indeed, some huge churches, already politically influential, are becoming catalysts for local economic development, challenging a conventional view that churches drain a town financially by generating lower-paid jobs, taking land off the property-tax rolls and increasing traffic.
But the entrepreneurial activities of churches pose questions for their communities that do not arise with secular development.
These enterprises, whose sponsoring churches benefit from a variety of tax breaks and regulatory exemptions given to religious organizations in this country, sometimes provoke complaints from for-profit businesses with which they compete — as ChangePoint’s new sports center has in Anchorage.
Mixed-use projects, like shopping centers that also include church buildings, can make it difficult to determine what constitutes tax-exempt ministry work, which is granted exemptions from property and unemployment taxes, and what is taxable commerce.
And when these ventures succeed — when local amenities like shops, sports centers, theaters and clinics are all provided in church-run settings and employ mostly church members — people of other faiths may feel shut out of a significant part of a town’s life, some religion scholars said.
Precedents in History
Churches have long played an economic role. Medieval monasteries in Europe and Japan were typically hubs of commerce. In the United States, many wealthy denominations have long had passive investments in real estate. And churches, like labor unions and other nonprofit groups, have been involved in serving immigrants, the elderly and the poor.
But the expanding economic life of today’s giant churches is distinctive. First, they are active in less expected places: in largely flourishing suburbs and barely developed acreage far beyond cities’ beltways and in communities far from the Southern Bible Belt with which they are traditionally associated. And in most cases — as at ChangePoint in Anchorage — these churches say their economic activities are not just an expression of community service but, more important, an opportunity to evangelize. The sports dome, for example, is a way to draw the attention of young families to the church’s religious programs.
“We don’t look at this as economics; we look at it as our mission,” Pastor Clauson said.
Scott L. Thumma, a pioneer in the study of megachurches at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, whose roster of churches was the basis for the Times analysis, said he has noticed churches that sponsor credit unions, issue credit cards and lend to small businesses.
Although community outreach is almost always cited as the primary motive, these economic initiatives may also indicate that giant churches are seeking sources of revenue beyond the collection plate to support their increasingly elaborate programs, suggested Mark A. Chaves, a religious sociologist at Duke University.
Investing Capital Assets
Also feeding this wave of economic activity is the growing supply of capital available to religious congregations.
The Evangelical Christian Credit Union in Brea, Calif., a pioneer in lending to churches and a proxy for this market shift, has seen its loan portfolio grow to $2.7 billion, from just $60 million in the early 1990s, said Mark A. Johnson, its executive vice president. Where bankers were once reluctant to lend to churches, the credit union now shares a market with some of the nation’s largest banks.
ChangePoint paid $1 million upfront and borrowed $23.5 million from a state economic development agency to buy a defunct seafood-packaging plant and warehouse out of foreclosure in July 2005. To do so, it formed a partnership with the for-profit owner of the cold-storage unit surrounded by the seafood plant’s land. An affiliated nonprofit is developing the sports dome with a gift of $4 million worth of church land. The church controls these entities directly or through board appointments, said Scott Merriner, executive pastor and a former McKinsey consultant.
Pastor Clauson acknowledged that a few local businessmen who own sports facilities have complained about the subsidized competition they face from The Dome, a nonprofit organization. It is an issue the church takes seriously, he said.
“We don’t want to be taking bread off of people’s tables,” the pastor said.
But the sports dome “is scratching such an enormous proverbial itch, there is no way we’re harming anyone,” he said, adding, “There is more than enough need to go around.”
Martin McGee, the Anchorage municipal assessor, acknowledged that the property poses an assessment challenge. Land and floor space used only by the church are exempt, he said, but the rest of the seafood plant site is taxable, and the tax treatment of the sports dome site is still under review.
The tax issues will be even more complex for a megachurch project in Charlotte, N.C. There, the University Park Baptist Church paid $11.5 million late last year to buy the Merchandise Mart, a half-million-square-foot office and exhibition space.
Some 57 percent of the space will ultimately be remodeled for church use, but the rest will bring new business activity to the neighborhood, said Claude R. Alexander Jr., the church’s lead pastor who also serves on the board of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce.
His church has left its economic mark on the neighborhood it will leave behind when it moves to the mart. With its traffic added to that of another megachurch a few miles away, a once-quiet intersection between the two churches has recently seen the construction of fast-food outlets and other businesses.
The traffic is unlikely to ease when University Park moves. The other nearby megachurch, the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, already has zoning approval for Friendship Village, a complex of shops, apartments, homes, offices and housing for the elderly on 108 acres off Charlotte’s beltway.
According to Tom Flynn, the economic development officer for Charlotte, University Park’s purchase of the Merchandise Mart already has prompted interest in older properties nearby.
A Complex Tax Challenge
The church, which formed a for-profit property management unit that also includes a small limousine service, envisions a mixture of commercial and religious uses at its new site — with its own share of the space beginning around 38 percent and rising over time.
What’s a poor tax assessor to do?
The entire site is currently taxable, said Alonzo Woods, the church’s director of operations. But when the church moves in, it will seek exemptions for areas used “strictly for church purposes.”
Churches are moving into residential development, as well. Windsor Village United Methodist Church, one of two churches that own shopping centers in Houston, is teaming up with a national home builder to develop more than 460 homes in the southwestern section of the city.
And in Dallas, The Potter’s House, a 30,000-member church established by Bishop T.D. Jakes, is the linchpin in an economic empire that includes Capella Park, a community of 266 homes.
Just how far-reaching the megachurch economy can become is clear at the First Assembly of God Church in Concord, a small community northeast of Charlotte. Under the umbrella of First Assembly Ministries are the church, with 2,500 in weekly attendance; a 180-bed assisted-living center; a private school for more than 800 students; a day-care center for 115 children; a 22-acre retreat center; and a food service — all nonprofit. In addition, there is WC Properties, a for-profit unit that manages the church’s shopping center, called Community at the Village, where a Subway outlet, an eye-care shop and other businesses share space with church programs that draw traffic to the mall.
Doug Rieder, the church business administrator, said WC Properties files a federal tax return and pays property taxes on the commercial space at the mall.
But Mr. Rieder acknowledged the difficulty of allocating space, staff time and expenses to the appropriate tax category. “We’re very intertwined — it gets tough day to day,” he said adding, “I have to constantly ask myself whether I am accurately allocating our costs.”
Concord was delighted to have First Assembly as the new landlord at the mall once anchored by Wal-Mart.
“That’s a very crucial crossroads for the city,” said W. Brian Hiatt, the city manager. “And the church has been a great partner.”
Another contribution the church makes to the city is a free daylong celebration it holds on Independence Day, complete with fireworks.
Mr. Hiatt said no one seemed to find it awkward for a church to conduct the community’s celebration marking the birth of a country committed to separation of church and state.
“It was a very positive event,” he said.
Mr. Rieder, the church business manager, paused when asked whether people of other faiths would have felt comfortable at the event.
“We try not to discriminate in doing community service,” he said. “There are Muslims and other non-Christians here, of course. And we do want to convert them, no doubt about it — that’s our mission. We don’t discriminate, but we do evangelize.”
The same quandary confronts Pastor Clauson in Anchorage. “There is nothing inherently alienating about what we’re doing economically,” he said. “An Orthodox Jewish youngster or a conservative Muslim child encountering our programs would find zero intimidation.”
Nor does he want his community to become divided along religious lines, he said. But at the same time, “we definitely want to use these efforts as an open door to the entity that we feel is the author and creator of abundant life — Jesus.”
He added, “It’s a tough balancing act.”
I think yours may be the most salient point in this entire thread. The uglyness of the church sign is so obviously ignorant, it's ignorant to those to whom it's directed as well.
You are not, I assume, tax-exempt. I am certainly not tax-exempt. We can both still express our political views.
I once knew someone who got a few friends together to buy a piece of property. The formed a "church", and got the tax-exempt status. I have no idea how they did it or about the details of it; it was decades ago, and I was a bit removed from the whole thing; just heard about it second-hand. It was a scam.
Some professions, psychiatrists and teachers, for example, routinely need to advise people and may even find people suspending their ordinary internal barriers to trusting. Strong ethical standards have to be adhered to there, and having the ability to sanction abusers does provide a tool for keeping such people and organizations on the right side of the ethical line. Having them not be taxed but having available the tool of removing their tax-free status as a punishment if they cross the line might be good, for example. (I don't have an agenda here, just some thoughts I'm kicking around aloud... always a dangerous thing to do.)
Thanks for your post.
I am too tired thinking about the bailout to care much about this right now, but I do think there are good reasons to keep such privileges in place and to continue to do so. How government enforces observance of law is usually at the bottom of why people scam. If there is no enforcement in a particular area, scammers will be drawn to what they see as an opportunity. Churches provide a great sense of community with like minded folks and they do a great deal to help others. The fact that there are people who take advantage of the breaks we give churches is a testament to the lawbreakers character.
Johnson said, “...he must connect the dots because he is not sure that all members of his congregation can do so on their own.”
They can't "connect the dots... on their own"? That sort of begs the question: why are they voting?
I wonder more that they trust him. After all, he doesn't have a very high opinion of his congregants, does he!
Good point; the idea that they trust him to make decisions for them is very scary. I thought that the particular comment to which I refer was very telling.
I think we’re mostly in agreement. But I don’t think being a “religious” organization should automatically qualify that organization for tax-exempt status. I think they should, as you say, file returns with deductions for any charitable work they do. I don’t see that promoting religious belief should be grounds for tax-exemption.