Happy Atheist Forum

I find it odd that the internet is almost silent on a topic so obvious.  Churches spend some of their money on charitable causes, and if we want to make their charitable arms tax-free, fine, but why should all the rest of their money be tax-free?  What they mostly do with that money is put on a weekly show.  Theatres, concert halls, and sports stadiums pay taxes.  Casinos where magicians perform pay taxes.  Yet the weirdly dressed ordained magicians who turn bread into flesh and wine into blood make no economic contribution to our nation.  TV studios where game shows are broadcast pay taxes.  Yet preachers who cry "Come on down!" to those lucky contestants who suddenly find Jesus and win the prize of eternal bliss suck our nation's economic vein like the toothsome undead.

I googled variations on "tax chuches" and found only one article suggesting we do so.  It was posted in 2006.  Daylight Atheism: Tax the Churches - http://www.daylightatheism.org/2006/10/tax-the-churches.html

Does it seem odd to you that our internet, where any and every topic gets discussed, from the sublime to the ridiculous, is silent on something so obvious?

Either our nation is secular or it isn't.  A truly secular nation would force churches to pay taxes on any money that doesn't go directly to charity.  Believers might balk at this, but non-believers wouldn't.  Would they?

i think it was just your search terms:

http://www.google.com/search?q=should+c ... =firefox-a (http://www.google.com/search?q=should+churches+be+taxed&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)

And...of course they should be taxed...they could then always set up non-profit orgs for their charitable activities and go through tax-free status like all secular nonprofits.

Quote from: "Whitney"i think it was just your search terms:

http://www.google.com/search?q=should+c ... =firefox-a (http://www.google.com/search?q=should+churches+be+taxed&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)

Thanks, Whitney.  Apparently the word "should" made all the difference.  

So the question of taxing churches is being raised.  People are publicly bringing it up for discussion.  That's good.  Yet nothing is coming of it.

QuoteAnd...of course they should be taxed...they could then always set up non-profit orgs for their charitable activities and go through tax-free status like all secular nonprofits.

This is an idea who time has come.  So I'll pose the next question.  How do we move society in this direction?

Being involved in politics I would suppose, bringing up the issue and making your voice heard. People are lazy, they wont change unless they get that little push in the right direction.

Quote from: "Byronazriel"Being involved in politics I would suppose, bringing up the issue and making your voice heard. People are lazy, they wont change unless they get that little push in the right direction.

Do you recommend any interim steps prior to direct political advocacy?  I'm gratified to learn that the first interim step, that of talking publicly about it at all, has been taken, contrary to my initial perception due to faulty search strings when I was googling.
 
By the way, I was excited to find these words - "Similarly, church properties should share in the burden of public revenues and should not be exempt from taxation" - in this: A Secular Humanist Declaration - http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=main&page=declaration#separation

I'm thinking the next interim step, prior to direct political advocacy, would be to drum up support among those most likely to be in agreement; I.e., non-believers.  When I say support, I mean support for advocacy, support for action, not merely support for the concept itself.

Bring the issue up at your next city council meating, and write your congressman.

If you start a fund I'll chip in, so long as you promise not to spend my money on pot like the last guy I supported did.

I suggest you recommend this idea to the Richard Dawkins Foundation (http://richarddawkins.net/pages/contact) if you're serious about raising awareness to this as an issue. It's not exactly pressing with all the events going on in the world right now, but given the GOP-Obama tax cut deal that's about to go into effect and the lousy debt and lousy economy... now could be somewhat auspicious. After all if it's ever going to change we have to get vocal about it sometime.

If it did enter national discussion it would also distract the Tea Party from pushing any other religiously motivated agendas in the culture wars.

I would think the first step would be developing a reason for why church leaders ought to want their churches to also pay into taxes and send out a ton of letters and visit as many churches/synagogues/mosques etc as possible...something like this can't make it through legislation without support of the majority and there aren't enough nonbelievers to create a majority vote.  The first group I'd try to get on board would be Jews by appealing to their love of freedom of religion and how such a tax allows the government to decide what is a real religion and what isn't.

Even if you try the court route it would still be a faster journey with the support of religious groups not only because of social pressure but also because they are really good at generating the money that would be needed to pay for the lawyers.

As it currently stands, pretty much anyone who calls themselves a church and acts in any way like a church can take benefit from the tax free status; even a group of atheists who wish to be considered a church.  It's poorly regulated as is evidenced by thousands of churches getting away with supporting a political candidate without losing their tax exemption.

All the above said, considering that we live in a time where many of our schools can't even manage to maintain providing children with a secular education, refuse to teach evolution as fact, and slip in religion whenever they can get away with it, perhaps this is a battle that should be tabled for a later date (obviously my priorities are with education).

Quote from: "Sophus"I suggest you recommend this idea to the Richard Dawkins Foundation (http://richarddawkins.net/pages/contact) if you're serious about raising awareness to this as an issue.

I opted instead for these folks: The Secular Coalition for America - http://www.secular.org/

I'll report whatever response I get.

QuoteIf it did enter national discussion it would also distract the Tea Party from pushing any other religiously motivated agendas in the culture wars.

Putting theists on the defensive is one of the main reasons for pursuing church taxation.

Quote from: "Whitney"All the above said, considering that we live in a time where many of our schools can't even manage to maintain providing children with a secular education, refuse to teach evolution as fact, and slip in religion whenever they can get away with it, perhaps this is a battle that should be tabled for a later date (obviously my priorities are with education).

I view all of those fronts as critical, but I also view them as religion on the offensive.  It seems religion is always attacking and secularism is always defending.  That's bad strategy on our part.  We need a way to go on the offensive - to force religion into a defensive posture.  If this is a culture war, and we intend to win, then we need to attack.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"

Quote from: "Sophus"I suggest you recommend this idea to the Richard Dawkins Foundation (http://richarddawkins.net/pages/contact) if you're serious about raising awareness to this as an issue.

I opted instead for these folks: The Secular Coalition for America - http://www.secular.org/

Ah, even better.  

I think maybe the most effective way to attack the church tax-free status might be a lot of us going out and founding tax free atheist churches.  Then the Christians will get pissed that we are getting a lot of tax free stuff for our groups and choose to discontinue the policy....just as Fort Worth Christians recently chose to beg the transportation authority to ban religious and atheist ads because they would rather restrict them than have to see a few atheists ads.  Basically, trick them into wanting to be secular    Problem is that most atheists want nothing to do with anything remotely related to church so it's hard to form groups that want that status.  I don't even like the church status thing (ironically took an atheist church to make me not like churches) but would be supportive if there was a mass group effort to do the above for that purpose.

Quote from: "Whitney"I think maybe the most effective way to attack the church tax-free status might be a lot of us going out and founding tax free atheist churches.  Then the Christians will get pissed that we are getting a lot of tax free stuff for our groups and choose to discontinue the policy....

This idea interests me so I've started some preliminary research.  Here is a link to the document that describes the rules surrounding 501(c)(3) status: IRS Publication 557 - http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p557.pdf

The particular section describing churches is brief.  It starts on page 27.  This is the most important part:

Quote from: "IRS Publication 557"To determine whether an organization meets the religious purposes test of section 501(c)3, the IRS maintains two basic guidelines.
1. That the particular religious beliefs of the organization are truly and sincerely held.
2. The the practices and rituals associated with the organization's religious belief or creed are not illegal or contrary to clearly defined public policy.

The tricky part, of course, is that atheism per se is, for many of us, the absence of belief.  But those of us who have a positive belief in the non-existence of any deity could form a church around this positive belief.  The associated practices and rituals could be individualistic in nature.  For example, the creed could be as follows:

"There is no God.  There is only my life, governed by my will, causality, probability, and human laws.  Rejecting worship, rejecting prayer, rejecting divine command, and rejecting Providence, I am left with only my own courage, my own wisdom, my own strength, whatever resources I can bring to bear, and whatever help I receive from those who stand at my side.  So be it.  I am ready.  On this day, I begin my life anew."

The five virtues of this church, then, would be courage, wisdom, strength, resourcefulness, and reciprocity.  Encouraged practices would be facing challenges, study, physical exercise, financial investment, and social networking.

The sole ritual would be to recite the creed each morning.

The above is just an example of how something like this could be designed.  I'm fairly confident the IRS would have a hard time rejecting the above.

Comments?

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"The above is just an example of how something like this could be designed.  I'm fairly confident the IRS would have a hard time rejecting the above.

Comments?

You don't have to report to the IRS if you are church exempt, just have to get the state comptroller to recognize your church status to be state tax exempt:

see http://www.churchoffreethought.org/inde ... emid=74#ta (http://www.churchoffreethought.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=167&Itemid=74#ta)

Here is some quoted text in case the site isn't working...barely loaded when I tried it:

QuoteIs the NTCOF tax exempt?

According to the IRS’s Form 1023, Application for Exemption Under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, churches "may be considered tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) even if they do not file Form 1023. Accordingly, we, like many other churches, have not sought â€" and under the law do not need to seek â€" formal IRS approval of our status as a tax-exempt organization.

Moreover, the NTCOF meets, without question, the IRS criteria of a church as outlined in their Form 1023. On page 23 of Form 1023, it is stated that: "The IRS maintains two basic guidelines in determining that an organization meets the religious purposes test: 1) That the particular religious beliefs of the organization are truly and sincerely held, and 2) That the practices and rituals associated with the organization's religious beliefs or creed are not illegal or contrary to clearly defined public policy." In addition, "1) The organization's activities in furtherance of its beliefs must be exclusively religious, and 2) An organization will not qualify for exemption if it has a substantial nonexempt purpose of serving the private interests of its founder or the founder's family." The NTCOF easily meets all of these criteria.

Our status with the State of Texas, however, has been an interesting story. The Texas State Comptroller denied an application from the Ethical Society of Austin (ESA) for tax-exempt church status in 1997 because the group did not "worship a Supreme Being." We were also denied tax-exempt status by the state of Texas a few months later with it being asserted by the Comptroller’s office that the NTCOF "appears to be a discussion or social group rather than a religious organization." An appeal made on our behalf by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State was also rejected. However, the Texas Supreme court ruled that the Comptroller cannot dictate what churches must believe or disbelieve, and in May 2006, the Texas State Comptroller granted our application for tax exemption as a religious organization.

If you were to want to be able to claim you have 501c3 status, however, you do have to file form 1023...just like any secular non-profit.  There are various reasons why a church ought to do this as well but none of which have any bearing on this discussion.

Quote from: "Whitney"I think maybe the most effective way to attack the church tax-free status might be a lot of us going out and founding tax free atheist churches.  Then the Christians will get pissed that we are getting a lot of tax free stuff for our groups and choose to discontinue the policy....just as Fort Worth Christians recently chose to beg the transportation authority to ban religious and atheist ads because they would rather restrict them than have to see a few atheists ads.  Basically, trick them into wanting to be secular    Problem is that most atheists want nothing to do with anything remotely related to church so it's hard to form groups that want that status.  I don't even like the church status thing (ironically took an atheist church to make me not like churches) but would be supportive if there was a mass group effort to do the above for that purpose.

Scientology churches aren't tax exempt are they? How do they distinguish between a cult and a religion?

Quote from: "Sophus"Scientology churches aren't tax exempt are they? How do they distinguish between a cult and a religion?

Scientology in fact enjoys 501(c)(3) status, as I found noted on a variety of web sites, but most clearly and succinctly on one of their own - http://www.bonafidescientology.org/Append/09/page00.htm

If we could find some hard atheists who wanted to start a church, and if we designed it along the lines described above in this thread, I'm pretty confident the IRS would have little choice but to grant 501(c)(3) status.

Incidentally, there's a church that I would call apatheist, though it calls itself apathetic agnostic, but as far as I can tell, it never sought 501(c)(3) status - presumably out of apathy: The Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic - http://uctaa.net/index.html

Quote from: "Sophus"How do they distinguish between a cult and a religion?

They don't...it's not up to the government to decide what is a dangerous cult and what is simply a religion.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"

Quote from: "IRS Publication 557"To determine whether an organization meets the religious purposes test of section 501(c)3, the IRS maintains two basic guidelines.
1. That the particular religious beliefs of the organization are truly and sincerely held.
2. The the practices and rituals associated with the organization's religious belief or creed are not illegal or contrary to clearly defined public policy.

The tricky part, of course, is that atheism per se is, for many of us, the absence of belief.  But those of us who have a positive belief in the non-existence of any deity could form a church around this positive belief.  The associated practices and rituals could be individualistic in nature.  For example, the creed could be as follows:

"There is no God.  There is only my life, governed by my will, causality, probability, and human laws.  Rejecting worship, rejecting prayer, rejecting divine command, and rejecting Providence, I am left with only my own courage, my own wisdom, my own strength, whatever resources I can bring to bear, and whatever help I receive from those who stand at my side.  So be it.  I am ready.  On this day, I begin my life anew."

The five virtues of this church, then, would be courage, wisdom, strength, resourcefulness, and reciprocity.  Encouraged practices would be facing challenges, study, physical exercise, financial investment, and social networking.

The sole ritual would be to recite the creed each morning.

The above is just an example of how something like this could be designed.  I'm fairly confident the IRS would have a hard time rejecting the above.

Comments?

In regard to the word "religious" in the guidelines, wouldn't this go against what being an Atheist means?  I've heard many times here that Atheism isn't a religion nor is it faith based.  To make ones creed that "There is no God" is to make the same, but opposite, claim as Christianity...or worse since I'm not aware of any religious creed that dogmatically or specifically states, "There is a God" (rather it is assumed) and thus making "There is no God" faith based.  It seems to this not so higly educated individual it is the wrong approach to gaining ground in taxing churches.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"The sole ritual would be to recite the creed each morning.

You mean robotically?  Where would this leave free thinking?

Just thinking as my fingers follow along.

Quote from: "AnimatedDirt"In regard to the word "religious" in the guidelines, wouldn't this go against what being an Atheist means?  I've heard many times here that Atheism isn't a religion nor is it faith based.

If an atheist takes the position that they do not have a belief in god or gods (this is the definition of Atheist) then this is a neutral stance, although they could lean (even strongly) away from  or towards the possibility of a god or gods. No belief is assumed, they may simply be waiting for proof before making a judgement. Of course, with proof it would not be a belief as it would then be a fact.

If an atheist takes the position that they believe that there are no gods then this is a belief system that is not based on proof. They would still be an atheist because they would lack a belief in a god or gods.

AD,

What the Atheist Church here basically did to solidify their status was define church as a group of people getting together to discuss religious topics and argued that, in this way, they were a religious organization.  There is no legal need to have a creed or any other such nonsense in order to be recognized as a church by the state...the definition of church is only loosely defined because ultimately the government can't dictate what is and isn't a religion as that would violate separation of church and state.  I could start the Church of the Fonz tomorrow and have tax free status upon incorporation simply by declaring the organization a church.

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.tvrage.com%2Fscreencaps%2F18%2F3506%2F307967.jpg&hash=8c4ec7f5c630f35582aaed009df794eac202b1fa)

I'm not saying the reasoning for how a church can be only based on being an atheist was philosophically correct (legally yes) nor was I ever completely comfortable with the idea of calling a group of atheists a church.  For the purpose of the OP I am only supportive of doing so under a mass movement in an effort to make the religious churches secularize themselves by voting against automatic tax-free status for religious groups.

Quote from: "Whitney"AD,
What the Atheist Church here basically did to solidify their status was define church as a group of people getting together to discuss religious topics and argued that, in this way, they were a religious organization.  There is no legal need to have a creed or any other such nonsense in order to be recognized as a church by the state...the definition of church is only loosely defined because ultimately the government can't dictate what is and isn't a religion as that would violate separation of church and state.  I could start the Church of the Fonz tomorrow and have tax free status upon incorporation simply by declaring the organization a church.

I'm not saying the reasoning for how a church can be only based on being an atheist was philosophically correct (legally yes) nor was I ever completely comfortable with the idea of calling a group of atheists a church.  For the purpose of the OP I am only supportive of doing so under a mass movement in an effort to make the religious churches secularize themselves by voting against automatic tax-free status for religious groups.

Thanks.

My only hang up left is the idea of a creed being repeated daily.  (I realize you mention there's no need for a creed) Not that I find it wrong.  There's value in memorizing, but from the standpoint of brainwashing.  I find it difficult to accept that someone like Inevitable Droid (I enjoy his logical and insightful thinking) would suggest something so argued against by most Atheism.  It's not full-on brainwashing, but couldn't it fall into the same arena?  When I read that, it made my head tweek to one side.  I could be wrong though.

Other than that, I really don't care whether religious organzations are tax-exempt or not.  I do think it could be a mistake to do so.  Just think how much influence the Church has now...and when the Church is then required to give taxes to the State...how much more will the Church think itself to have the right to do so AND act on this?  What about the potential of a backfire of this nature?  Is it possible?  Again, letting my fingers go as I ponder.

I agree that a creed would be brain washing even if that wasn't the intention.

Quote from: "AnimatedDirt"and when the Church is then required to give taxes to the State

I don't think they should have to pay taxes no matter what, but they should have to pay if they are not helping society...if they want out of paying taxes they should have to prove that they are a non-profit organization, file taxes, make their financial information public, stay out of politics, etc  just like all secular non-profits are required to do to maintain their tax free status.

Quote from: "Whitney"I don't think they should have to pay taxes no matter what, but they should have to pay if they are not helping society...if they want out of paying taxes they should have to prove that they are a non-profit organization, file taxes, make their financial information public, stay out of politics, etc  just like all secular non-profits are required to do to maintain their tax free status.

I'm no expert on the tax laws and what happens with 501(c)(3)'s legally in regard to their financial information.  I do know of at least one Christian 501(c)(3) ministry that has gone through at least 3 audits in the past 10 years.  How much of the finances is combed through in those audits, I don't have knowledge of.  I was under the impression that the IRS has the right to look at everything.

As a Christian, I believe as you do.  We (Christians) should stay out of politics.

I don't know about audits (probably much like a personal audit where they ask for supporting documentation) but all 501c3 organizations have to make their tax returns public.  This allows the general public to see what kind of money is going in and out of the non-profits.

Considering that raising taxes or implementing new taxes on anyone is an unpopular subject, and considering that the religious right is the group most vehemently opposed to taxes (especially for the rich!), i'm not surprised that the internet doesn't have much discussion going on about implementing new taxes on churches.

Here's an idea, instead of passing around an offering plate every Sunday, we should just send make the churches pass an IRS man around every Sunday.