Found an issue I agree with Trump on

No one cares.

That’s a slippery slope

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[img]Twitter messages from a Trump family friend and top officia[/img]l at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) claimed that Trump and his family "couldn't agree more" that the church should lose its tax-exempt status.

"From The moment I saw your series I told President Trump & his family we needed to revoke their tax exempt status. They couldn’t agree more, but please don’t publicize that yet," Lynne Patton wrote to actress Leah Remini in the messages obtained by HuffPost. “This is going to get done in the next 4 years or I’ll die trying. Knock on wood!”

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Yyyyeaaaahhhhhhh......

Bout that...

Wanna bet $20?

Good Scientology is a scam not a religion. I never understood why any religion should get tax exempt status.

Hey, I agree with you. I’m just saying it’s a slippery slope. Once you do it to one religion, there is a legal precedent.

Difference is that your payment isn't a prerequisite to learning the gospel of Christ, either in church or via The Bible. You cannot learn Scientology dogma without paying them a ton of money. Secret societies aren't tax exempt organizations for a reason.

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I never understood why any religion should get tax exempt status.

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Because they are non-profits. Plain and simple. If you want to get rid of tax-exempt status for religions, then you must do so for all non-profits accordingly. Otherwise you are simply a commie who hates organized religion and wants to beat them down.

Religious institutions and churches are the foundation of American exceptionalism. They started some of our first schools, hospitals, and outreach programs. They helped preserve wildlife and parks before the government helped. Without them, you'd lose over half of hospitals in the country. Thus disrupting a system already stretched very thin.

These churches provide food banks, help build houses, supply free volunteer labor, etc. Also, many of their parishioners are good citizens.

Then one of the biggest reasons: these Churches are funded and fueled by parishioners who are already taxed! The money a person donates to a Relgion/church has been taxed via income taxes and property taxes. What they donate, is what hey have left. There isn't some goal to launder money. All that religious people want to do is donate so they can worship somewhere and for the large majority, do good works. To tax on top of that is nonsensical.

No. Wrong. Now if all they did as an organization, was political campaigning, then maybe. Maybe. However, a relgion/Church guides the personal politics of many people, and has since our founding. It is the natural right of man to join together and voice their opinion on the matter. And that is what they are doing, voicing an opinion. They have that right. Even with Trumps rollback, a church is not allowed to endorse, nor do they. But it allows a pastor to imply indirectly and not be punished. The rollback shouldn't even be called a rollback. All it does is protect pastors/priests etc who imply that they support a candidate, or if they imply/command via the pulpit, that you should too.

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Don’t stop with Scientology.

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Let's take away the tax exemption from Islam too and let's stop calling them a region when they're really a death cult.

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When Trump rolled back Johnson Amendment enforcement, all of this went out the window. They want to be able to make political donations, they should be taxed.

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Trump didn't roll back the Johnson Amendment (he may have claimed he did, but he didn't). The truth is that the IRS has enforced it all of one time since its inception. The ADF has sponsored "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" for 10 years, practically begging the IRS to enforce it so they can challenge it in court and the IRS doesn't respond (probably because they know the law is unconstitutional and will be thrown out in court- and it will if it ever makes it there, but probably won't make it there because the IRS refuses to enforce it).

In general, though, I can't think of a church that wishes to make monetary political contributions. There may be a few (a very few), but they're rare and are more the exception than the rule (and are probably more SJW groups than legitimate Bible-teaching churches). I've pastored churches for 15 years and I know I have better things to do with our budget than support a political candidate with it. I don't see much wisdom in a pastor publicly endorsing a candidate from his official position, either. The pulpit is the place for teaching and preaching Christ and Scripture, not endorsing political candidates. Of course, that doesn't mean that it's not the place to discuss Scriptural teaching on societal issues (even those that may be deemed "political" hot-button issues).

As far as taxing churches, I'm not sure what the point would be. First (as someone else already pointed out), churches are already taxed (the members- which actually is the church- have already paid taxes and are giving what they have after taxes). Churches also pay sales tax on pretty much everything they buy. Second, taxes are paid on profits, not revenue. Churches can account for every penny as ministry- or business-related expenses. So, there'd be nothing to tax. Of course, that's why they're non-profits, in the first place.

The only thing that stripping the tax-exempt status away from churches would do is to cause those who give money to the church to not be able to claim a deduction on their taxes for the money they give. For 90% of people, that amount doesn't equate to much- if anything- on their taxes, anyway. So, people aren't going to stop giving (and let's be honest- the real reason people want to strip tax-exempt status away from religious non-profits and churches is because they hate religion and religious people- pettiness and hatefulness and ignorance, no other reason- so they hope that by taxing them, people will stop giving and churches will die- or, at least, in some way punish them for daring to be religious. Ain't gonna happen, though).