All religious denominations should pay taxes

[crinkle]

they probably should since they're earning money too...

[mannyamador]

Crinkle wrote:

they probably should since they're earning money too...

Earning money is not hte same as generating profit. Even commercial companies that do not generate a profit are effectively not paying taxes.

Most churches, especially the Catholic Church, do not earn PROFITS. They provide services that are worth much more than the fees (if any) they charge for them. Also, their social contributions are worth far more than whatever they take in monetarily. The State recognizes this and thus certain activities and the "earnings" from such are exempt. Without such an exemption, the State would stand to lose such important services and have to spend more in proividing them.

Take note that in the Philippines, without the help of the catholic Chuyrch, social services would collapse almost entirely. The Church makes up for the failures of the government.

[M@rv|n]

The Church makes up for the failures of the government.

mao jud!

[saber]

I'm not in favor of this.

[Stoner]

Crinkle wrote:

they probably should since they're earning money too...

Earning money is not hte same as generating profit. Even commercial companies that do not generate a profit are effectively not paying taxes.

Most churches, especially the Catholic Church, do not earn PROFITS. They provide services that are worth much more than the fees (if any) they charge for them. Also, their social contributions are worth far more than whatever they take in monetarily. The State recognizes this and thus certain activities and the "earnings" from such are exempt. Without such an exemption, the State would stand to lose such important services and have to spend more in proividing them.

Take note that in the Philippines, without the help of the catholic Chuyrch, social services would collapse almost entirely. The Church makes up for the failures of the government.

ngeee..i audit ang religious organizations nga nagdumala ug mga dagko nga eskuelahan, tan-awa kung wala ba na profit...

[mannyamador]

Most Church-run schools are hardly making a profit. Were it bot for the donations, many of them would close up. The Catholic Church is NOT as rich as many imagine. And yet it provides the most important and effective social services in the country.

[bfginus]

bfginus wrote:
giver bert, i'm afraid your explanation is too lame, or just plain invalid, to exempt churches (Roman Catholic Church, specifically) from taxation.

giver_bert replied:

Not unless, if you have first hand knowledge regarding technicalities of taxation then definitely you'll come up with the same impression.. but you are entitled to your own opinion..

giver_bert, this time i'm afraid you're missing my point.

legality is not the issue here. that the church's money-earning endeavors are generally exempt from taxation under the law is well-settled from the time of this nation's birth. the issue here is whether or not there are logically valid grounds for such legal exemptions to continue.

many churches use strategies for outreach that go beyond the typical evangelistic sermon and sunday school program.. they have become more involved in their communities and the lives of their members in a non-threatening way, providing them with various activities and opportunities designed to connect families and strengthen community relationships..

so what? other entities are doing these things, too. other government servants i know serve the underprivileged in ways that even risk their lives. and these poor servants are not tax exempt.

and we can see churches operate bookstores.. others regularly stage concerts and productions.. even few sell products online.. some offer sports-facility memberships.. such activities have the form of common secular businesses for which people are used to paying.. and because no church ever seems to have more money than needs, there is often an effort to make these opportunities self-funding, partially or wholly.. even though the motivation and goal is religious....

so there's the rub. in the united states and other wealthy countries, these commercial ventures, undertaken in the guise of propagating their faiths, are commonly used by religious organizations as an excuse to exempt them from taxes. and they are raking in money, lots of money.

it is to be clarified that tax exemptions for churches/religious entities aren't boundless (one big tax myth).. income tax, and many other state taxes distinguish between activities related to the exempt purpose of the organization and activities that generate income unrelated to the organization's exempt function.. such laws labels the income from a regularly carried on business unrelated to the organization's exempt purpose as "unrelated business income.."

who says that tax exemptions for churches are absolute? of course, oppositors to tax exemption know that certain church properties and revenues are taxable. the opposition have no problem about church incomes subject to taxes. they are training their guns on the tax-exempt incomes - and for a very valid reason.

given a "what if such tax will be imposed on them" scenario.. i think it is but rational to ask ourselves first these questions:
where would the collections go?...Could somebody care to answer these…

yes i will, most readily, giver_bert. the collections should ideally go to the coffers of the government, in the same way that church collections must go to where it should. and if by chance something goes wrong along the way, refusing or ignoring to perform one's duty to give the other his due is simply not a way to give unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

If christians are to strictly take your line of reasoning, i'm afraid maunay mo sa tari nga inyong gidugsak sa rason sa opositor. History tells us that christian churches have their own abundant share of depravity and corruption. For this reason, do christians have to stop giving churches their dues too?

are we guaranteed that it will yield more benefits to people than those provided by these entities?
would this even give government officials a greater avenue for corruption?

there's no guarantee. and yes, it may even possibly create another opportunity for corruption. but these answers are useless to support the faithful's argument. for unless and until they actually happen, the answers sit in the realm of speculation. as such they neither provide an argument to sustain the faithful's position, nor do they serve to demolish the opposition's argument for tax exemption removal.

this line of questioning proves one thing, though: that you are basing your position this time on your speculative answers to the questions. sadly, the same questions, whose answers have brought to mind the long, dark history of disgrace and ignominy that hounded the Christian church before, will also hound christian churches today.

and i'm pretty sure, the faithful are not about to concede that churches don't deserve their monetary earnings despite this embarassing reality.

[SPRINGFIELD_XD_40]

Tax or not , it will not become a solution to the problem of the country economic wise . Kurakoton ra gihapon na sa mga naa sa taas . Pwede pa cguro ang benefactors ang TAXAN kay obviosuly walay kwarta ang simbahan , speaking for the catholic church but mga donations lang . Ngano man diay ug simbahan ang personally magpataod ug suga sa vicinity outside sa simbahan and consider it na TAX na , at least naay nakita .

[Madeus]

In Germany, Austria, and I think Switzerland, the Roman Catholics pay taxes.

In the Philippines too.

[bfginus]

mannyamador said:

Most churches, especially the Catholic Church, do not earn PROFITS.

a conclusion as hollow as my empty piggy bank. unless you offer something other than your pure assumption, my response is, how did you know?

Without such an exemption, the State would stand to lose such important services and have to spend more in proividing them.

wrong, with or without exemption the State would not stand to lose such services because the Church renders the State no services at all. And the presence or absence of the Church's social services in a given community is not a basis for the determination of the State's budgetary allocation for social services in said area.

The Church makes up for the failures of the government.

it is not the church alone that is doing it. every person, natural or juridical, has the social responsbility to help make this world a better place to live in. making up for the failures of the government is one such responsibility.

but performance of one's social responsibility is not and should not be made an excuse for the grant of a special treatment the Church is now unfairly enjoying. thus, every income-earning soul pays, or is made to pay, taxes -- except the poor, needy church.

Take note that in the Philippines, without the help of the catholic Chuyrch, social services would collapse almost entirely.

ha? almost entirely gyud?