Michigan Megachurch Costs $40.000 in Lost Taxes

[grayman]

After reading this article about a pastor whose church bought him a 3.65 million dollar home (imagine if that money went into medical research or helping the homeless...sorry, musing), it got me wondering, just why are religions exempt from taxes?

Are there any other billion dollar industries that catch a tax break like this?

Imagine if churches paid their share. Just ponder for a moment.

[Glen.Nogami]

Prosperity theology strikes me as one of the more vile products to come out of religion of late. And no, Phelps doesn't count (it seems likely that the guy gets off on being hated, for those of you who hadn't heard.)

Really, though, I just can't believe this tripe.

Quote:

Gibert, who left a 7,000-square-foot home in Franklin for the mansion, agreed security is a concern.

"I am an African-American man who became pastor of a multi-ethnic church. Some people don't agree with that," he said. "I have not received death threats, but people have followed my children to school."

Oh good. The race card AND strawman. Gee, I missed you, old friend.

Quote:

"They could buy a very, very nice home out here for half a million," she said. "Can you imagine how many miracles you could perform, how many people you could help with the $3 million left over?"

Precisely, though technically miracles have to be something beyond natural means (meaning they don't exist).

[Björn Toulouse]

From the article:

Originally Posted by the article

Ben Gibert (the pastor) said God surrounds the faithful with beautiful things.

One of the leaders of his church agrees. "God's empowerment is to make you have an abundant life," said Elder Marvin Wilder, a lawyer and general counsel for the church.

Apparently these two are doing much better than the average member of the "faithful" congregation. Easier to make those claims when that happens.

Sometimes i have a struggle with my attitude towards conmen. i believe in most cases that it does take a dishonest heart to be cheated, so in some respects, i believe the conman is teaching this person a life lesson although in an involuntary way. At the same time, i hate to see the conman profit by it.

If the congregation of this Gibert guy think they are going to become as rich as sheiks like he is because they believe the words he delivers on Sunday, then i would have to hail him for giving a great life's lesson to the suckers who bought him his luxuries and if they fail to learn from this, then they should endure further lessons of the same until they catch on. Again, i feel bad for the people who are not members of the congregation who bear the loss of revenue from his tax-free supercrib, that he does not have to pay those taxes like the rest of us.

On another note, the article describes the home in the picture as a 4 bedroom house. i have to ask - if there are only 4 bedrooms in that stick and brick castle, then whatthehell is in there?

[Solus]

Originally Posted by Björn Toulouse

On another note, the article describes the home in the picture as a 4 bedroom house. i have to ask - if there are only 4 bedrooms in that stick and brick castle, then whatthehell is in there?

Larger house can often only have bedrooms on the 2nd floor. The rest of the house is filled with other types of rooms. I guess with four bedrooms the good pastor only plans on having his close family stay around. No room for the poorest creatures of god's earth.

Of course it's easy to understand why the "flock" of the pastor doesn't mind him living in a 3.5 million dollar house. They haven't read their own goddamn book.

[slingblade]

Quote:

Taken from the article
Ben Gibert (the pastor) said God surrounds the faithful with beautiful things.

One of the leaders of his church agrees. "God's empowerment is to make you have an abundant life," said Elder Marvin Wilder, a lawyer and general counsel for the church.

"Why would you think that religion is about God giving you things, Sling?"


Gee....I dunno.

[Roswell-Perseis]

How about if that money went to our $3,000,000,000 deficit.

We have given many tax breaks to GM, etc. for brining jobs to people. Now that they are taking them to other countries I don't care who we tax. It's 3 billion dollars. Soon, we will tax the air. Then the longwinded Christians will make up for the years of tax free religion they have enjoyed.

[jesus_freak]

Is $40.00 in lost taxes really that big of a deal?

[RandFan]

You really have no idea.

I'm an auditor and I audit churches. I had no idea. It's a lot of money. Why do you think L. Ron Hubbard got into the act?

[clarsct]

Because ANY taxation of ANY religion put the State into Religion, which is a no-no according to the First Amendment.

Think about it. Who determines what taxes any church pays? What if a town decides to vote in a tax higher for Baptists then Methodists? Unequal taxation is simply ONE headache. What if a congregation was taxed based on size, only allowing the MegaChurches to exist? What if this shut down all other churches but the Xian ones? What if the Federal Government taxed many churches OUT of existence, based on a flat tax? Would you really have the freedoms to worship and believe as we see them now?

As much as I am anti-religion, putting the Church in the State's hip pocket is a BAD idea...

[slingblade]

I have to agree.


and now I have to go wash my fingers........

[Stimpson J. Cat]

clarsct,

Quote:

Because ANY taxation of ANY religion put the State into Religion, which is a no-no according to the First Amendment.

I'm sorry, but that is complete nonsense. In order to make religious organizations tax-exempt, the government has to decide who does and does not qualify. That is putting the State into Religion. The First Amendment should make it impossible for the government to treat religious organizations any differently than anybody else.

Quote:

Think about it. Who determines what taxes any church pays? What if a town decides to vote in a tax higher for Baptists then Methodists?

That would violate the First Amendment. But what you don't seem to get is that the current (unconstitutional) method of making churches tax exempt provides the mechanism to allow exactly that to happen. What if the IRS decides that Babtists don't qualify as an official church? Then they end up getting taxed more than the Methodists.

You asked who determines what taxes any church pays. There is your answer. The IRS does. That is not right. If we actually stuck to what the First Amendment says, it would be impossible for a town to make taxes higher for Babtists than Methodists, because they would both be paying exactly the same taxes that any other organization, religious or non-religious, pays.

Quote:

Unequal taxation is simply ONE headache. What if a congregation was taxed based on size, only allowing the MegaChurches to exist?

Again, that would be unconstitutional. And again, this sort of thing is something that the current unconstitutional situation allows. What if the IRS decided that only large organizations can quanlify for tax exemption? Again, if there was no religious tax exemption, this would not be an issue, because all of the churches would simply pays exactly the same taxes that every other organization pays.

Quote:

What if this shut down all other churches but the Xian ones? What if the Federal Government taxed many churches OUT of existence, based on a flat tax? Would you really have the freedoms to worship and believe as we see them now?

As much as I am anti-religion, putting the Church in the State's hip pocket is a BAD idea...

That is exactly what making churches tax exempt has done.


Think about this. If I start my own church, does it get tax-exemption? Only if I convince the IRS to give it to me. And if they decide for whatever political reasons that religion X should not have it, they can take it away.

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. That means that not only can Congress not make any law which establishes a religion, but it cannot make any law which grants the power to do so to any agency. Right now the law grants to the IRS exactly that power. This is unconsititutional, and provides the government with the power to do all of those things which you mistakenly seem to think that removing religious tax exemption would give them the power to do.


Dr. Stupid

[slingblade]

okay. maybe I agree with that.

Dang. Having a brain is hard.

[Björn Toulouse]

Originally Posted by Solus

Larger house can often only have bedrooms on the 2nd floor. The rest of the house is filled with other types of rooms.

Actually what i imagine he has there are some really humongous bedrooms.

[sophia8]

Originally Posted by Björn Toulouse

Actually what i imagine he has there are some really humongous bedrooms.

Plus, you gotta have a room for the maid.....

[Glen.Nogami]

Originally Posted by sophia8

Plus, you gotta have a room for the maid.....

Who cleans the house and nothing more. He's a Christian, after all .

I imagine the other rooms are prayer rooms, you know, ascetic centers of silent meditation.

[Kopji]

$40,000 per year

[Kopji]

And that's probably just taxes not collected. They don't even count the impact on local infrastructure like sewer, streets, increased traffic, noise, etc.

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by slingblade

okay. maybe I agree with that.

Dang. Having a brain is hard.

Been there done that. I keep thinking I'll wait until I hear a rebuttal before I post my approval of an argument, but then I do it again.

[clarsct]

First, I must hand it to Simpson J.

I've expressed this sevreal times on different forums, but this is the first really strong counter-argument I have seen.

Originally Posted by Stimpson J. Cat

clarsct,


I'm sorry, but that is complete nonsense. In order to make religious organizations tax-exempt, the government has to decide who does and does not qualify. That is putting the State into Religion. The First Amendment should make it impossible for the government to treat religious organizations any differently than anybody else.

Well, I'll ignore the 'nonsense' statement, as the argument was clearly written and made sense.
The thing you are missing is that we consider a LOT of organizations tax exempt in this country, such as the JREF. If they were ONLY considering religions as tax exempt, then I might concede the point made. Until then, they aren't making any concessions they do not make for other groups whose aims are expressly charitable, which is the clause by which the Church enjoys its status.

Quote:

That would violate the First Amendment. But what you don't seem to get is that the current (unconstitutional) method of making churches tax exempt provides the mechanism to allow exactly that to happen. What if the IRS decides that Babtists don't qualify as an official church? Then they end up getting taxed more than the Methodists.

Ah, but the IRS does NOT assess property taxes, which was the issue at hand. You're thinking income taxes. Chuches, being non-profit, make NO income. My wife made less than the minimum required for taxation a few years, and was not taxed. If you make no money, you pay no income taxes, whomever you are.
Of course, such a scheme would violate the First Amendment, which was my original point, of course.

Quote:

You asked who determines what taxes any church pays. There is your answer. The IRS does. That is not right. If we actually stuck to what the First Amendment says, it would be impossible for a town to make taxes higher for Babtists than Methodists, because they would both be paying exactly the same taxes that any other organization, religious or non-religious, pays.

Your city can asses taxes based on whatever criteria they find acceptable. The assessed value of a property is whatever the city deems it to be. I get a tax break based on a Homestead Act from who knows how many damned years ago. About $5000 off my house's value when assessing the property tax. I get this on a completely arbitrary basis.
The city makes property tax laws arbitrarily. By not taxing Churches, we ensure that those arbitrary laws do NOT break the First Amendment.

Quote:

Again, that would be unconstitutional. And again, this sort of thing is something that the current unconstitutional situation allows. What if the IRS decided that only large organizations can quanlify for tax exemption? Again, if there was no religious tax exemption, this would not be an issue, because all of the churches would simply pays exactly the same taxes that every other organization pays.

The IRS again. I have already answered this.

Quote:

That is exactly what making churches tax exempt has done.


Think about this. If I start my own church, does it get tax-exemption? Only if I convince the IRS to give it to me. And if they decide for whatever political reasons that religion X should not have it, they can take it away.

Actually, just saying you're a church is enough. In order to get the IRS exemption, you merely need to not show a profit. It is when we say that we can levy a property tax on a church that we open the door to government saying what constitutes a church.

Quote:

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. That means that not only can Congress not make any law which establishes a religion, but it cannot make any law which grants the power to do so to any agency. Right now the law grants to the IRS exactly that power. This is unconsititutional, and provides the government with the power to do all of those things which you mistakenly seem to think that removing religious tax exemption would give them the power to do.


Dr. Stupid

While the IRS may have a seperate code dealing with Churches, it is based on the same idea as charitable secular agencies: You can't tax someone on income if they had none.

The IRS does NOT assess property taxes. Your local government does, and on an arbitrary basis. That basis can be made to look like something else, if the city fathers are canny. You are opening the door to people trying to circumvent the First Amendment.

I thank you for your time, Dr. Stupid.



Slingblade, you was right the first time!!!

Randfan...a wise man. I sense you were once married.....

[Daylight]

But the truly evil is these mega-churches amass enough money to buy a town for their flock. Now you have an area where the US Constitution is secondary to the fearless leaders law. And a “Police” force to enforce it (and cover up bad PR). Next comes buying local politicians. And soon fearless leader has a lot of power and is just about above the law.

Remember the fringe Mormon groups that are very difficult to infiltrate and bring to justice.

Rev Moon is another nut case that has used this unconstitutional tax exemption to gain power.

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by Daylight

But the truly evil is these mega-churches amass enough money to buy a town for their flock. Now you have an area where the US Constitution is secondary to the fearless leaders law. And a “Police” force to enforce it (and cover up bad PR). Next comes buying local politicians. And soon fearless leader has a lot of power and is just about above the law.

Remember the fringe Mormon groups that are very difficult to infiltrate and bring to justice.

Rev Moon is another nut case that has used this unconstitutional tax exemption to gain power.

Don't forget that the Mormon Church is a huge land holder themselves and have used that land to gain political power that the courts have had to step in and stop when that advantage violated church state issues. Not always with success.

It is not possible to completly seperate church and state. BTW, housing allowance and a number of other remunerations to ministers are paid pre-tax (IRS territory). I would sure like to write off my entire mortgage payment.

[clarsct]

Originally Posted by Daylight

But the truly evil is these mega-churches amass enough money to buy a town for their flock. Now you have an area where the US Constitution is secondary to the fearless leaders law. And a “Police” force to enforce it (and cover up bad PR). Next comes buying local politicians. And soon fearless leader has a lot of power and is just about above the law.

Remember the fringe Mormon groups that are very difficult to infiltrate and bring to justice.

Rev Moon is another nut case that has used this unconstitutional tax exemption to gain power.

Yeah. Worked great in Waco.

Thing is, this has a 'critical mass' after which it falls apart.

Eventually the County and State begin to take notice, especially of child abuse reports. People sneak out and start telling what is going on and wind up on Montel.

And they will always hit this critical mass because the power hungry are always gluttonous.

I fear not one sect taking control. I fear the mass of 'fellow travelers' that will sell our liberties one little itty bitty bit at a time.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

clarsct,

Several points:

1) When I said "complete nonsense", my intention was not to imply that what you said was not clearly written, but simply that your arguments did not make sense. Specifically, that your conclusion that removing religious tax-exemption would make it easier for the government to violate the 1st Amendment, does not logically follow.

2) While it is true that the IRS does not levy state or local taxes (including property taxes), it is the IRS that makes the decision of who does or does not qualify for religious tax exemption.

3) The idea that "just saying you're a church is enough", or that religious organizations which get the tax-exemption do not make any profit, is ridiculous. First of all, if just saying that you're a church was enough, nobody would have to pay taxes. And as long as organizations like the Catholic Church and the Church of Scientology are tax-exempt, the claim that religious organizations get entitlement to their status by being non-profit, simply flies in the face of the facts. The fact of the matter is that the only reason special rules exist for religious organizations (rather than them simply using the same rules as any other non-profit), is because these special rules allow organizations which would not qualify for ordinary tax-exemption to get it.

4) If it is the case, as you said, that property taxes are arbitrary, then the local governments can use this to shut down any organization they don't like. In this case the potential to shut down churches that they don't like, is only a small subset of a much bigger problem. What's more, as I already mentioned, the 1st Amendment actually provides religious organizations with more protection than any other organization would have with respect to this problem. In any event, the idea of blatently violating the 1st Amendment (by giving the government the ability to decide who is and is not an official church), in order to protect against potential violations of the 1st Amendment which are already protected against by the 1st Amendment anyway, is completely ridiculous.


The bottom line is that special tax-exemption for religious groups can't exist without establishing some criteria for deciding who does and does not qualify. That is the establishment of religion, and thus unconstitutional. So even if I could buy the argument that these tax-exemptions somehow protect us from other violations of the 1st Amendment, it doesn't make any difference. It's still unconstitutional.

As for the fear that local governments might try to shut down churches by taxing them into oblivion, I can think of all sorts of ways to address that problem that don't involve blatently violating the 1st Amendment and opening the door to countless other abuses by doing so. And those other solutions have the additional benefit of also protecting other organizations from similar abuses.


Dr. Stupid

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by clarsct

Because ANY taxation of ANY religion put the State into Religion, which is a no-no according to the First Amendment.

Think about it. Who determines what taxes any church pays? What if a town decides to vote in a tax higher for Baptists then Methodists? Unequal taxation is simply ONE headache. What if a congregation was taxed based on size, only allowing the MegaChurches to exist? What if this shut down all other churches but the Xian ones? What if the Federal Government taxed many churches OUT of existence, based on a flat tax? Would you really have the freedoms to worship and believe as we see them now?

As much as I am anti-religion, putting the Church in the State's hip pocket is a BAD idea...

Wait a minute are you saying that you can not assess property and income taxes on churches because you would fundamentaly tax different religions differently? Why? Take the value of the building and tax them based on it just like everyone else.