It's time to start taxing churches and their properties.

[edjr 5,546]

I'm not saying over tax them, just tax them at the same rate you tax me for my real estate holdings.

Great way for states to make some more income and leave mine alone.

[Hardcore troubadour 12,576]

He’ll yes! Synagogues will bring in a lot of bang for the buck! Of course the Catholic Church’s could probably pay off the defect themselves. And then there’s the Mosques. That will be awesome. And the Scientologists as well. Shouldn’t be a problem at all. 

[lod001 1,235]

Yep. It's completely out of hand. People are running businesses disguised as churches.

[edjr 5,546]

Just now, Hardcore troubadour said:

He’ll yes! Synagogues will bring in a lot of bang for the buck! Of course the Catholic Church’s could probably pay off the defect themselves. And then there’s the Mosques. That will be awesome. And the Scientologists as well. Shouldn’t be a problem at all. 

Does scientology have much real estate? I thought their sickso just mailed them checks?"

[Hardcore troubadour 12,576]

4 minutes ago, edjr said:

Does scientology have much real estate? I thought their sickso just mailed them checks?"

Yup. Huge complex in Clearwater Florida, all over NY and LA, where soft minded actors and actresses are.  

[Djgb13 2,338]

8 minutes ago, edjr said:

Does scientology have much real estate? I thought their sickso just mailed them checks?"

Yes. I’ve been to the one in Clearwater, Fl. It’s huge. Had a very attractive woman in her late 20s try to recruit me and 2 other guys from the baseball team to join. You know the crazy ones always great in bed. 

[TimmySmith 2,782]

5 minutes ago, edjr said:

Does scientology have much real estate? I thought their sickso just mailed them checks?"

They own major parts of some cities.

I am fine with taxing all land, including federal land.  No one gets a free ride.

[edjr 5,546]

Just now, Djgb13 said:

Yes. I’ve been to the one in Clearwater, Fl. It’s huge. Had a very attractive woman in her late 20s try to recruit me and 2 other guys from the baseball team to join. You know the crazy ones always great in bed. 

you should have stopped there. 

[Djgb13 2,338]

1 minute ago, edjr said:

you should have stopped there. 

Sorry but if you want to know how I know that’s why. Did summer ball there after first year of college. 

[edjr 5,546]

Just now, TimmySmith said:

They own major parts of some cities.

I am fine with taxing all land, including federal land.  No one gets a free ride.

my city has 3 major churches and several schools and smaller churches. it's ridiculous. 

 

check this sh1t out   https://imgur.com/a/ud7KWBY

[fandandy 3,311]

The Catholic Church is the third-largest landowner in the world.   First place?  The British Royal Family.  Technically the Queen of England.  Supposedly she "owns" Canada.  In reality, the Catholic Church is prolly number one.

[TimmySmith 2,782]

2 minutes ago, edjr said:

my city has 3 major churches and several schools and smaller churches. it's ridiculous. 

 

check this sh1t out   https://imgur.com/a/ud7KWBY

I am a regular church goer and churches really do provide far more immediate benefit by way of food, protection, clothing, money for the needy than most local governments so they are badly needed and serve so many people.  However, I am fine with the land being taxed.  I doubt any local government is going to take a church for tax liens though. Would not look good.

[Djgb13 2,338]

Those mega churches like Joel Olsteens are a big scam and should be taxed. Priests/preachers shouldn’t be making millions from sermons at church. 

[Intense Observer 344]

21 minutes ago, edjr said:

my city has 3 major churches and several schools and smaller churches. it's ridiculous. 

 

check this sh1t out   https://imgur.com/a/ud7KWBY

A person not from Mass sees that word and pronounced it Glue-chester. Kind of like War-chester.

I went to a family reunion/funeral up there recently and learned that it is not War-chester but Wooster.

Does that mean you pronounce your town like Glooster? Glowster?

[edjr 5,546]

12 minutes ago, Intense Observer said:

A person not from Mass sees that word and pronounced it Glue-chester. Kind of like War-chester.

I went to a family reunion/funeral up there recently and learned that it is not War-chester but Wooster.

Does that mean you pronounce your town like Glooster? Glowster?

Glawster

[The Observer 641]

100% absolutely correct. The fact that they operate such a financial windfall and don't have to pay taxes is ridiculous. 

[edjr 5,546]

24 minutes ago, TimmySmith said:

I am a regular church goer and churches really do provide far more immediate benefit by way of food, protection, clothing, money for the needy than most local governments so they are badly needed and serve so many people.  However, I am fine with the land being taxed.  I doubt any local government is going to take a church for tax liens though. Would not look good.

 

[Secret Asian Man 26]

2 hours ago, edjr said:

Does scientology have much real estate? I thought their sickso just mailed them checks?"

They own a lot of downtown Clearwater. They have bought some of the old cigar factories in Tampa and turned them into recruiting centers. I would expect that the same is true in other cities. 

[Secret Asian Man 26]

https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/10/26/exp-scientology-buys-most-of-downtown-clearwater-florida.cnn

[Cloaca du jour 2,064]

Mega churches for sure....small under 100 congregations need the help.  They are the ones doing food banks...community dinners....vacation bible schools on a shoestring budget.

[KayJay1971 238]

4 hours ago, Intense Observer said:

 it is not War-chester but Wooster.

How is this even possible?

[Thornton Melon 542]

5 hours ago, edjr said:

Glawster

Glawstuh

[shorepatrol 1,735]

Absofuckinglutely 

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

Yep. The small suburb of Memphis my family lives in is crazy. Some ridiculous number like 25% of the real estate in town is churches (they have a heavy limitation on the amount of commercial real estate in town.)

Most of these churches are rich as fock. They should be paying their taxes.

I'd be ok for an exemption for extremely small poor churches. But the others need to pony up. 

[JustinCharge 2,397]

If we tax them, then that only means even MORE money is gonna get siphoned off to mega-corrupt politicians to fund their excesses.  You want to give the political class even more money?  At least the Churches are trying to help the poor.

I thought mostly conservative people posted here, yet I'm seeing waves of posts in this thread of empowering politicians to take luxurious vacations to fantasy islands here.

What if we went the other way and gave more of the billions wasted by the government to Churches?

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

The real scam is the preachers. These Megan church guys make bank, and pay little tax. Their mansions are a "parsonage" and tax free. The guy that lives next door to my dad has a 9,000 square foot "parsonage" he pays nothing for.

It's a total scam. 

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

4 minutes ago, riversco said:

If we tax them, then that only means even MORE money is gonna get siphoned off to mega-corrupt politicians to fund their excesses.  You want to give the political class even more money?  At least the Churches are trying to help the poor.

I thought mostly conservative people posted here, yet I'm seeing waves of posts in this thread of empowering politicians to take luxurious vacations to fantasy islands here.

We are talking property tax here. That's local schools, fire, police. We aren't talking washington here. 

[JustinCharge 2,397]

1 minute ago, titans&bucs&bearsohmy! said:

We are talking property tax here. That's local schools, fire, police. We aren't talking washington here. 

Oh, so you're saying that once people get accustomed to taxing churches, it will SURELY stop at the local level.  Uh-huh.  The second the federal government notices people are willing to tax Churches, they are gonna want in on that action for sure.

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

1 minute ago, riversco said:

Oh, so you're saying that once people get accustomed to taxing churches, it will SURELY stop at the local level.  Uh-huh.  The second the federal government notices people are willing to tax Churches, they are gonna want in on that action for sure.

I'm fine with that. Churches should operate under the same law as everyone else. Now if you want to talk about tax policy being incorrect in general, I'm sure you'd get resounding agreement around here. But the law should apply to all entities the same. 

[vuduchile 1,940]

Yeah, right.  Gotta go after the Churches since they are the biggest tax avoiders (evaders) and need to pay their fair share. 
 

Get a grip people. There isn’t a church in the the US that generates $13B in annual profits. 
 

://www.google.com/amp/s/finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/video/amazon-paid-only-1-2-172311914.html

 

Focking Morons  

 

[JustinCharge 2,397]

1 hour ago, titans&bucs&bearsohmy! said:

I'm fine with that. Churches should operate under the same law as everyone else. Now if you want to talk about tax policy being incorrect in general, I'm sure you'd get resounding agreement around here. But the law should apply to all entities the same. 

Did you know the USSR actually BANNED all charities for 70 years?  Just banned them all.  Only the federal government was allowed to help the poor.  And then once they set that up, the commies stole the money from the federal assistance programs to enrich themselves.  So the poor received no aid at all. 

That's the mentality on the left.  Promise to help the poor and then steal all the money.

We don't need to keep repeating the same mistakes. Charities should be utterly and completely separate from the government, local, federal or otherwise.  There's a damn good reason we have separation of Church and State.

Or go back to King Henry the 8th.  He wanted the Church money for himself.  So he started smearing the name of the Church, calling them all pedophiles and whatnot.  Pointing out any excesses.  He then crossed the line and started forcibly reforming the Church.  Once he got people used to that idea, he banned the Church, set up his own Church, made himself its Pope, and then stole ALL the money.  He took the money and used it to finance pointless bloody wars. 

There's a damn good reason we have separation of Church and State.

We have seen this fookin sheet repeatedly.  Government sees all the money the Church has, steals it all, and uses it to enrich itself.  No fooking thanks.  Learn from history.  Keep it separate. 

 

Saying "its time to tax Churches" is nothing new.  Corrupt people have been promoting that for hundreds of years.  If they get the public to go along, then they steal the money and ruin public assistance.

 

I could talk about the Knights Templar, who provided roadside assistance to pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem.  They made some money by helping them.  So they had built up some wealth.  Kings noticed the wealth they had and immeidately started spreading gossip and rumors to discredit them until the public demanded that they were hunted down and killed.  Then the kings stole the money, if they could find it.  To this day, we have ancient legends of hidden Templar gold.  Same .  A nonprofit helps people, manages it money well, builds something, and politicians wanna steal it.

[shorepatrol 1,735]

2 hours ago, riversco said:

  At least the Churches are trying to help the poor.

 

Tax them like the rest of us and you'll see who is really doing "gods work". 

[Bill E. 666]

My parents live in Erie PA and it is crazy.  The hospitals, colleges, churches and other non-profits own over 1/3 of the property in the city and it is all non-taxable.  That does not count government owned properties but that is not much better.  The Port and Convention Authorities have built new mega-hotels that are tax exempt while they raised hotel taxes on other hotels to help fund the building of the new ones.  Two have been built and one more is coming.  The suburb tax rate is a fraction of the city taxes so people that can have fled even the better neighborhoods causing the housing prices to plummet while tax rates continue to go up.  Maybe it is like that everywhere but they need to tax them all the same or these cities will continue to rot.

[kutulu 1,541]

Here comes another con hiding behind a collar
His only God is the almighty dollar
He ain't no prophet, he ain't no healer
He's just a two bit God damm money stealer

 

[NorthernVike 2,079]

Tax Indian Reservations and their focking casinos too.

[Alias Detective 1,178]

17 hours ago, Hardcore troubadour said:

He’ll yes! Synagogues will bring in a lot of bang for the buck! Of course the Catholic Church’s could probably pay off the defect themselves. And then there’s the Mosques. That will be awesome. And the Scientologists as well. Shouldn’t be a problem at all. 

Catholic Church is the largest land owner in the world.  I think.

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

1 hour ago, kutulu said:

Here comes another con hiding behind a collar
His only God is the almighty dollar
He ain't no prophet, he ain't no healer
He's just a two bit God damm money stealer

 

So bring me your coconuts

Bring me your sweet mango too

Bring me your papaya

And I'll tell you what I'll bring for you

Syphilis & religion

That's what we are handin' out

Syphilis & religion

Two things you could

Probably do without

 

Now get your little donkeys

Pack'em with straw and mud and water

Build me a church right here

Build me a whorehouse and

Bring me your daughter

She could do with some extra tuition

Later on behind the mission

Fanned by the cool night breeze

I'll spread the word and the std's

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

1 hour ago, kutulu said:

Here comes another con hiding behind a collar
His only God is the almighty dollar
He ain't no prophet, he ain't no healer
He's just a two bit God damm money stealer

 

Hilary went to the Catholic Church because she wanted information
The vicar, or whatever, took her to one side and gave her confirmation
Saint Theresa's calling her, the church up on the hill is looking lovely
But it doesn't interest, the only things she wants to know is How and why and when and where to go
How and why and when and where to follow
How and why and when and where to go
How and why and when and where to follow

But if you are feeling sinister
Go off and see a minister
He'll try in vain to take away the pain of being a hopeless unbeliever

When she got back, her spirituality was thrown into confusion
So she got a special deal on renting
From the man at Rediffusion
"Look at me! I'm on TV
It makes up for the shortcomings of being poor
Now I'm in a million pieces", picked up for deliberation
By the people listening at home
By the people watching on the telly
By the people listening at home
By the people watching on the telly

But if you are feeling sinister
Go off and see a minister
Chances are you'll probably feel better
If you stayed and played with yourself

[frank 2,144]

Time for lust, time for lie
Time to kiss your life goodbye
Send me money, send me green
Heaven you will meet
Make a contribution
And you'll get a better seat

[TimmySmith 2,782]

I am shocked that this is devolving into an anti religion thread. Shocked! 

Now you know why non profits will never pay property tax.