This goes for the churches in America...

[GiantBear91]

Since America is in a economic deppresion, don't you think it would realy help out big time if the chruches started paying taxes like everyone else? There nothing special, they are just churches. They are not the god that they worship.

Just a little thought I had...

[Vahanian]

the church would never do it, they would bullshit there way out off it like they bullshit people in beliveing in that invisible dude in the sky

[Drace]

YES.

My boss's husband is an owner of a church and is the pastor. They are pimpin there. The goddam pastor has an Ipod and a mac...
The church is nice too....
And the boss "donates" $1000 of the funds from the thrift store to the church and probably pays herself a shitload. Apperently $8000 a month goes to salary pay. She only has 1-2 employee swho get payed $8 an hour!

But I really dont see how much it would help if churches payed taxes.

[GiantBear91]

Right on guys! Well I mean I do believe in a higher power called "God" but I do not believe in churches, denominations of Chirstianity, or that the higher power is a supernatural human life form. I do find a lot of the things in the bible to be bullshit. So you know Being somewhat of a Christian Anarchist, I think the church should pay taxes regardless of the fact that it is a church.

[STJ]

Yes they should every other bussiness in America pays taxes why not them.

[NecroCommie]

Not only pay taxes, but high taxes too! And the church buildings in themselves should be collectivised for public use if need rises.

[Cynical Observer]

i believe the constitution wouldn't allow it (although i could be wrong on that) but that's an opinion i've held for a long time that churches should pay taxes.

[NewWorld]

Unless the Constitution of the United State of America was somehow amended or burned, there is no way that churches should have to pay taxes. The separation of church and state is a doctrine that, at this very moment, is keeping government officials from finding all of us who do not believe a specific religion, charging us, and executing us. It insures that the government cannot interfere in any way with your worship or lack of worship. The past era's of history have shown that this is a very necessary doctrine to have in place in a society; it is one step closer to freedom for every man from everything. Sadly, something that seems like a simple thing, like helping out the economy by paying taxes, is prohibited by this doctrine as well. Men in these institutions are probably greedy and selfish, but by protecting their greed, our freedom to voice our opinions about religion is established.

[Chambered Word]

These people in the church are worse than the high-rolling capitalist leeches, doing even less useful work.

I don't think making them pay taxes would be too controvertial in regards to seperating church and state: technically you couldn't because of secularity, but you could justify such a thing by the analogy that a church is part of the nation still and is subject to whatever the state wishes to impose on it.

Realistically though you couldn't do this in America: the clergy are different to a booze-drinking bum on the street who simply doesn't want to work with only the real reason being that they have a nice looking suit, but people seem to be able to justify it with their belief in a sky-man, of whose existance there is no evidence for whatsoever and definitely alot of contextual and logical evidence against.

The whole system is corrupt. The church works with the capitalist state to phuck people over and the churchies get a share of the pie. It pisses me off whenever I meet someone who is so stupid that they don't realize this.

[Chambered Word]

Right on guys! Well I mean I do believe in a higher power called "God" but I do not believe in churches, denominations of Chirstianity, or that the higher power is a supernatural human life form. I do find a lot of the things in the bible to be bullshit. So you know Being somewhat of a Christian Anarchist, I think the church should pay taxes regardless of the fact that it is a church.

Sorry but hang on - you're an anarchist, and you believe in taxes?

Also with what you believe I'd call you a deistic anarchist. Christianity is a theistic religion, which you obviously don't follow.

[Comrade Anarchist]

they should have always been forced to pay taxes. the fact that they havent shows how fearful those in washington are of being kicked out of office by religious nuts

[Chambered Word]

they should have always been forced to pay taxes. the fact that they havent shows how fearful those in washington are of being kicked out of office by religious nuts

Most of those in Washington are religious, and you can be sure some are religious nuts.

If Obama (whom I personally think is a closet atheist) wanted to pass such a bill, it would have to go through Congress. Congress are the same or similar Nazis who if I'm correct stopped Clinton's healthcare bill coming through, so there you go.

Generally you can be sure there would be a gigantic shitstorm and alot of people would not be re-elected, and the whole thing would go back to being how it was before.

Tl;dr protest by burning down your local church and getting away with it, all for the lulz of course.

[STJ]

they should have always been forced to pay taxes. the fact that they havent shows how fearful those in washington are of being kicked out of office by religious nuts
Yes they should do one thing right for the country before the nuts vote them out.

[The Red Next Door]

It should depend, i think we shouldn't tax the churches that don't believe in homophobia and bigotry but we should tax those damn megachurches that my dad, aunts, and uncle on his side be going to, and tax TBN AND CBN TO DEATH!

[The Red Next Door]

the republicans had control of the congress back then, and now we democrats have the majority in congress now. The only reason i am a democrat is because we have a two party system and no social democrats or marxist in congress.

[mikelepore]

Those who said that the U.S. Constitution is the reason for the present policy are right. The interpretation has been that requiring someone to pay a property tax is identical to saying that the property will be confiscated if they don't pay that tax. Several of the courts have used paraphrases of what Daniel Webster said in 1819, "An unlimited power to tax involves necessarily a power to destroy", most recently the U.S. Supreme Court paraphrasing it again in a 1970 decision. Not because of the tax liability itself, but because a property tax also implies taking away the property in the event of nonpayment, they believe that such a tax would conflict with the statement in the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." That argument seems like a shallow rationalization to me, since law makers could tax churches that have abundant real estate and/or income, while exempting the poorer ones.