I saw this on someone’s “About Me” : Do you agree with it?

American Atheist – Clone: I saw this on someone’s “About Me” : Do you agree with it?
” I don’t know how you feel, but i’m pretty sick of church people. You know what they ought to do with churches? Tax them. If holy people are so interested in politics, government, and public policy, let them pay the price of admission like everyone else. The Catholic Church alone could wipe out the national debt if all you did was tax their real estate.”

Answers and Views:

Answer by Religion Fails Again
Definitely…

Answer by DevilWoman27
Yes.

Answer by American Atheist
So you like my George Carlin quote on my “About Me” ?

Answer by Cndi Grl
I donLt know how accurate the statement about national debt is, but the big religions are very wealthy and should be taxed like everyone else.

Answer by Қєlly
Yes, I agree with it. There is nothing “non-profit” about religions.

“Exemptions from property taxes represent an even larger benefit to churches — there may be as much as $ 100 billion dollars in untaxed church property in the United States. This creates a problem, according to some, because the tax exemption amounts to a gift of money to the churches at the expense of tax payers. For every dollar which the government cannot collect on church property, it must make up for by collecting it from citizens; thus all citizens are forced to indirectly support churches, even those they do not belong to and may even oppose.”

Edit: To those saying “no”, so you don’t have a problem with making up the property taxes that a Mosque doesn’t have to pay?

Answer by Anonnie Mouse
I agree. Most churches now days are big business/political lobbies, not nonprofits. Do you know how many mega-churches own massive amounts of corporate stock and funnel their profits into their church, into advertising, into political lobbies? Damn near ALL of them.

Answer by Mr.Popingo y u be crazy
Brilliant. I completely agree. I also agree with Sarah Silverman who told the Pope to sell the Vatican to bring an end to world hunger as well (since they are SO concerned with helping the needy, haha Catholics are funny)

Answer by Hybiscus
that is totally true, churches have become the equivalent to big businesses. churches hold stock in many companies, yet aren’t taxed on those earnings, and southern baptist and pentecostal churches even own malls and grocery stores, yet are not taxed on their earnings, either, any monies received should be taxed, just like regular folk

Answer by Star
disgusting, no respect

Answer by Tomo
Absolutely

Answer by Daver
Of course I do NOT agree.

For one thing, the the Churches don’t pay taxes, the individual Christian does indeed pay taxes like everyone else.

Second, the annual budget of Vatican City is no larger than the annual budget of the City of Chicago – HARDLY enough to put a dent in the national debt.

That person’s “about me” is proof-positive that some people are misinformed by choice.

Answer by Misty
No. I don’t.

The Catholic people who make up the Catholic Church already pay taxes and we have a right to vote and to be political like anyone else.

Planned Parenthood is very political and I don’t see anyone look to take away their tax exempt status.

And we could wipe out the national debt if the government would stop spending money on senseless projects and agencies.

Answer by Simon T
I am torn on this.

The extreme of this is scientology. Which is a way to scam people out of money, dressed up as a religion sufficiently to get tax-exempt status.

Scientology, Benny Hinn and his ilk, etc. are not true belief systems – they are holy snake oil salesmen and do not deserve tax exempt status.

At the other end you have a lot of churches, mosques, temples, etc. that truly act like charities with most of the money they receive. Would I like to see them act as pure charities? Yes, yes I would. But there are plenty of less efficient true charities out there.

The other aspect of this is the fact that all you would be doing is taxing the followers. If the parish needs more money to pay the new tax bill, then I doubt that the cash is going to flow out of the Vatican. They will either cut back on their true charity work or they will just ask for more cash to be put in the basket as it goes around.

What I would suggest is changing the charity laws. Right now charities can be very inefficient with the cash they receive, just as long as they do not make a profit.

Change that. To ba a charity you must:

1. Open you accounts to public review. Income can be marked as anonymous but all outgoings must be accounted for.
2. Have a minimum percentage of income go out for charitable work. Say 75%

Anyone failing to meet these criteria is taxed. Also whenever they ask for a donation they must explicitly and clearly say to each donor that they are not a registered charity and that they are considered a for-profit organization.

In this way the real scalpers would stand out from those that truly are doing good works. And we would lose a lot of the fake non-religious charities too.

Edit
WTF is it with these idiots saying people already pay taxes so their should not have to pay tax also?

So, if I am a psychiatrist the people who come to see me have already paid taxes, I provide them no goods I just spend time with them talking (just like church!) so, by this argument, I should be exempt from being taxed?

Do these people actually think at all?

Answer by J
Lol, silly individual.

Church people do get taxed. They are citizens just like everyone else.

They pay their taxes just like everyone else.

And as such have as much right be involved in the gov’t as everyone else.

And they have as much right to make political decision based on their ideals and worldview as everyone else.

Answer by JusTmE
I disagree…a lot. They aren’t MAKING any money.

This is what churches (the Catholic Church anyway) do with the money they receive as donations from parishioners….
upkeep on church
electricity, water, heating, etc.
feed, cloth, housing for the Priest (who does not have an income of his own)
education
retreats
food banks
adopt-a-kid programs
donations for charity
after school programs
some churches have homeless programs associated with them
etc.

No one is just taking off on a vacation or spending the money they receive on designer clothes and expensive cars. Everything they get they use to stay above water so they can help others.

There are much better ways for the government to wipe out the national debt.

Answer by Hannah B.
That will come true eventually.