It's a business, like any other--it just sells something that cannot be redeemed until after death. Let's pull back tax benefits for religious institutions and treat them the same as the rest.
It's not just like any other though, it already recieves huge tax relief. Not to mention the esitmated worth in 2018 at least was 30 Billion $
> The Internal Revenue Service automatically considers churches exempt. The reasoning behind making churches tax-exempt and unburdened by IRS procedures stems from a First Amendment-based concern to prevent government involvement with religion.
So it's okay not to pay taxes, but it can petition to recieve some. Doesn't add up.
I've been thinking a lot about the Satanic Temple recently. The supreme court has been ferociously eroding the separation of church and state lately. I wonder how they, and the public, would respond to public funding for a Satanic charter school that openly discriminated against heterosexual teachers and forced heterosexual students to undergo gay conversion therapy...
Edit: to be clear, I don't think that it would be a good to do. But for all the fearmongering about the "gay agenda" to make your kids gay, there's a well-documented "straight agenda" that results in a high rate of suicide (and very few enduring conversions) of its victims. If we are equal in the eyes of the law, zero or both must be valid.
I’m not against a gay only school. It doesn’t sound too dissimilar to male or female only schools, which only seek to employ teachers of the same gender.
maintenance is one thing. We have an empire, welfare state, huge entitlements and red ink of pension obligations as far as the eye can see. As soon as people fail, they look to the government to bail them out.
People also forget the huge network of Catholics who contribute their own personal time for the benefit of the local communities (and also the non-Catholics they activate with their local events).
It would be hard to quantify, but in the analysis you posted that's not included.
The news peg for this particular story (i.e. why the Catholic Church and not all denominations) is ostensibly the Church's ongoing legal battle and settlements re: clergy sexual abuse, but also the fact that the church's lobbying arm successfully argued an exception for religious organizations to not be disqualified under the rule's dictate "that only businesses with fewer than 500 employees, including at all subsidiaries, are eligible.":
> The Catholic News Service reported that the bishops’ conference and several major Catholic nonprofit agencies worked throughout the week of March 30 to ensure that the “unique nature of the entities would not make them ineligible for the program” because of how SBA defines a “small” business. Those conversations came just days after President Trump signed the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which included the Paycheck Protection Program.
> In addition, federal records show the Los Angeles archdiocese, whose leader heads the bishops’ conference, paid $20,000 to lobby the U.S. Senate and House on “eligibility for non-profits” under the CARES Act. The records also show that Catholic Charities USA, a social service arm of the church with member agencies in dioceses across the country, paid another $30,000 to lobby on the act and other issues.
Also, the Catholic Church is just fundamentally a more hierarchical and unified institution compared to other denominations. Sure, other denominations have dioceses and bishops, but not as rigidly structured as Catholicism, e.g. cardinals who work directly with the Pope.
$50k in lobbying for $1.4B (possibly $3.5B)? Seems like a hell of a ROI.
I’ve never understood why elected officials seem willing to acquiesce to huge pork barrel projects for such little $$ in lobbying. “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Lobbying Dollars”?
I'm not surprised they made an exception to allow the church to gain funds despite having more than 500 employees but did not require companies with more than 500 employees to provide sick leave for corona. Classic corruption. Send the funds to our rich rapist (proven not alleged in this case) friends while Americans are starving and getting evicted in the streets while sick because they have no sick days or financial support. Many people are still waiting for their first unemployment check from March but not to worry, the church won't go out of business and little kids will continue to be raped by priests. We have our priorities straight in America. Clearly raping kids is more important than feeding, sheltering, or providing sick leave for ordinary Americans. Message received loud and clear.
Employees of the US public school system abuse several orders of magnitude more children than the global Catholic clergy. Maybe I shouldn't be taxed to pay the rapist employees of a system my family and I don't benefit from before we start talking about the churches.
I'm a Catholic, and although I believe in my church's doctrine, I don't always come to the defense of my church's leaders. Here's how I see this:
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that when public funds (e.g. grants, aid, forgivable loans) are made generally available to any organization that meets certain neutral criteria, a religious organization that meets the criteria cannot be excluded merely because it is religious. The First Amendment's Establishment Clause requires the government to be impartial when it comes to religion, showing no preference toward any particular faith, or toward religious believers in general. But that doesn't mean that religious organizations must be barred from funding that is otherwise generally available.
So, assuming the Catholic parishes, dioceses, and organizations satisfied same the criteria for the PPP loans as everybody else, I don't think there's a "separation of church and state" issue here.
Another consideration: What happens if they were ineligible to participate in the PPP. They would likely be forced to furlough or lay off employees. Because churches don't pay into states' unemployment programs, those employees would not be eligible to collect unemployment insurance (or the federal government's additional unemployment aid), which would put them in pretty bad shape. I happen to think that churches SHOULD pay into unemployment programs or provide similar unemployment benefits for laid-off workers, but that's not the reality right now. And so having churches participate in the PPP is an available way for the government to look after people who happen to work for religious employers.
As for some of the more controversial details -- lobbying for special classification with regard to employee size restrictions -- I would not be surprised if the Church were in the wrong there, although it's certainly true that the Church has an organizational structure that far predates and doesn't map cleanly to U.S. corporate structures.
The issue that I have is that the Catholic Church has enormous assets, something like 30 billion in net worth globally. I'm feeling like the church had options beyond lobbying for relief.
Those assets are, in large part, the church buildings themselves. They are not liquid assets. Indeed, they are even more illiquid than most other real estate, because the market for church buildings, all of which are constructed to meet the needs and functions of a particular faith, is quite limited.
A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that the Catholic Church has vast piles of money sitting around in a Scrooge McDuck-style money bin. Whereas if you look at the balance sheets of your average Catholic parish or diocese, you'll see that their budgets are relatively modest, they sometimes operate in the red, and to the extent that they have liquid assets, they're generally set aside to fulfill pension obligations.
Even at the Vatican level, the annual operating budget is roughly equivalent to a mid-sized U.S. city, and expenses tend to be fairly close to income. The art in its museums is often mistakenly viewed as if it could be sold off like gold or diamonds, but the Vatican actually acts more as a conservator than an owner of the pieces. It does not consider itself at liberty to sell the art, because it was entrusted to the Vatican's care under the expectation that it would be perpetually maintained. In that sense, the art truly is priceless; it can't be sold.
One should be able to leverage some amount of value of those assets for loans. When you have assets you have options. And I'm sure they have lots of followers that will give money until it hurts to keep their Church from failing - a business can't ask its employees to fund things for a while in the same way a church can ask its followers. The church has options that others do not have and lobbying should not come first.
"Those assets are, in large part, the church buildings themselves. They are not liquid assets. Indeed, they are even more illiquid than most other real estate, because the market for church buildings, all of which are constructed to meet the needs and functions of a particular faith, is quite limited."
I don't think that's true. Years ago in Boston MA during one of the big legal where church leaders were accused of child molestation/rape/sex abuse, the church was ordered to pay $85 million dollars to the victims, some 260 people I think.
They took short term loans to pay that, then sold 15 buildings that netted them over 100 million dollars. One of the biggest properties was the archbishop's residence.
They didn't tap into the normal petitioners funds and similar, just took out some loans, took some insuance payouts to cover the 85 mil, then less then a year later sold those 15 buildings for over 100 mil.
The building packages were thought to be worth at minimum $1 mil per acre.
This was between 03 and 04.
In 2020, they were able to move around $2 billion to shield those assets from being taken into account during more recent sex abuse payouts.
They're not a small business in any sense of the word, and they took money they don't need, seeing as it can take them less than a year to sell $100 mil+ worth of assets to cover payments to 260 sex abuse victims 15+ years ago, or move around 2 billion worth of assets in a ploy to try and reduce what they'll have to pay to victims of these leaders.
Three church buildings have been sold within 20 miles of me the last few years. One is now a brewery / bar, one a town library and the last two offices, They all still look like churches outside, one just has to think outside the box.
30 billion would but them at 1/10th the net wealth of Walmart.
They are a 2000 year old charity. They rich compared to other charities (e.g. the Red Cross has 1.8 billion net worth ), but even a for profit department store chain like Walmart can accumulate more assets.
Because they exert, and lobby for, the right to refuse treatment on religious grounds. Women's reproductive rights, and LGBTQ people are harmed where tax dollars are redirected through "charity" and cannot be used to establish secular services of the same kind.
They're great for the "right kind" of elderly, homeless and orphans. But they've got a long history of screwing everybody else over, for example, forced conversion of native american orphans.
Essentially, it's a loophole that you can pilot a "separate but equal" aircraft carrier through. And then fail to even provide that "separate" care, so equality is not achieved.
Who said anything about perfection? I'm saying tax dollars would be better spent providing services to all citizens, not just those whose lives conform to a particular religion's norms. And thus we should tax churches for a percentage of their tithe. And maybe not shovel money on them just because they asked with cash.
The government shut its doors involuntarily - essentially blocking the revenue (donations) received. The government should have to provide compensation for 'taking away' the ability to minister to people and receive donations, according to the 5th amendment of the Constitution.
44 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 73.0 ms ] thread> The Internal Revenue Service automatically considers churches exempt. The reasoning behind making churches tax-exempt and unburdened by IRS procedures stems from a First Amendment-based concern to prevent government involvement with religion.
So it's okay not to pay taxes, but it can petition to recieve some. Doesn't add up.
Ha, nice, the Satanic Temple is also tax exempt [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Temple
Edit: to be clear, I don't think that it would be a good to do. But for all the fearmongering about the "gay agenda" to make your kids gay, there's a well-documented "straight agenda" that results in a high rate of suicide (and very few enduring conversions) of its victims. If we are equal in the eyes of the law, zero or both must be valid.
[1] https://taxfoundation.org/60-percent-households-now-receive-...
It’s a large array of individually operating entities providing local food banks etc.
It would be hard to quantify, but in the analysis you posted that's not included.
> The Catholic News Service reported that the bishops’ conference and several major Catholic nonprofit agencies worked throughout the week of March 30 to ensure that the “unique nature of the entities would not make them ineligible for the program” because of how SBA defines a “small” business. Those conversations came just days after President Trump signed the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which included the Paycheck Protection Program.
> In addition, federal records show the Los Angeles archdiocese, whose leader heads the bishops’ conference, paid $20,000 to lobby the U.S. Senate and House on “eligibility for non-profits” under the CARES Act. The records also show that Catholic Charities USA, a social service arm of the church with member agencies in dioceses across the country, paid another $30,000 to lobby on the act and other issues.
Also, the Catholic Church is just fundamentally a more hierarchical and unified institution compared to other denominations. Sure, other denominations have dioceses and bishops, but not as rigidly structured as Catholicism, e.g. cardinals who work directly with the Pope.
I’ve never understood why elected officials seem willing to acquiesce to huge pork barrel projects for such little $$ in lobbying. “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Lobbying Dollars”?
Employees of the US public school system abuse several orders of magnitude more children than the global Catholic clergy. Maybe I shouldn't be taxed to pay the rapist employees of a system my family and I don't benefit from before we start talking about the churches.
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that when public funds (e.g. grants, aid, forgivable loans) are made generally available to any organization that meets certain neutral criteria, a religious organization that meets the criteria cannot be excluded merely because it is religious. The First Amendment's Establishment Clause requires the government to be impartial when it comes to religion, showing no preference toward any particular faith, or toward religious believers in general. But that doesn't mean that religious organizations must be barred from funding that is otherwise generally available.
So, assuming the Catholic parishes, dioceses, and organizations satisfied same the criteria for the PPP loans as everybody else, I don't think there's a "separation of church and state" issue here.
Another consideration: What happens if they were ineligible to participate in the PPP. They would likely be forced to furlough or lay off employees. Because churches don't pay into states' unemployment programs, those employees would not be eligible to collect unemployment insurance (or the federal government's additional unemployment aid), which would put them in pretty bad shape. I happen to think that churches SHOULD pay into unemployment programs or provide similar unemployment benefits for laid-off workers, but that's not the reality right now. And so having churches participate in the PPP is an available way for the government to look after people who happen to work for religious employers.
As for some of the more controversial details -- lobbying for special classification with regard to employee size restrictions -- I would not be surprised if the Church were in the wrong there, although it's certainly true that the Church has an organizational structure that far predates and doesn't map cleanly to U.S. corporate structures.
A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that the Catholic Church has vast piles of money sitting around in a Scrooge McDuck-style money bin. Whereas if you look at the balance sheets of your average Catholic parish or diocese, you'll see that their budgets are relatively modest, they sometimes operate in the red, and to the extent that they have liquid assets, they're generally set aside to fulfill pension obligations.
Even at the Vatican level, the annual operating budget is roughly equivalent to a mid-sized U.S. city, and expenses tend to be fairly close to income. The art in its museums is often mistakenly viewed as if it could be sold off like gold or diamonds, but the Vatican actually acts more as a conservator than an owner of the pieces. It does not consider itself at liberty to sell the art, because it was entrusted to the Vatican's care under the expectation that it would be perpetually maintained. In that sense, the art truly is priceless; it can't be sold.
I don't think that's true. Years ago in Boston MA during one of the big legal where church leaders were accused of child molestation/rape/sex abuse, the church was ordered to pay $85 million dollars to the victims, some 260 people I think.
They took short term loans to pay that, then sold 15 buildings that netted them over 100 million dollars. One of the biggest properties was the archbishop's residence.
They didn't tap into the normal petitioners funds and similar, just took out some loans, took some insuance payouts to cover the 85 mil, then less then a year later sold those 15 buildings for over 100 mil.
The building packages were thought to be worth at minimum $1 mil per acre.
This was between 03 and 04.
In 2020, they were able to move around $2 billion to shield those assets from being taken into account during more recent sex abuse payouts.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-01-08/the-catho...
They sure as shit can liquidate, or move very large amounts of assets around to protect their own organization.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/us/church-in-boston-to-pa...
They're not a small business in any sense of the word, and they took money they don't need, seeing as it can take them less than a year to sell $100 mil+ worth of assets to cover payments to 260 sex abuse victims 15+ years ago, or move around 2 billion worth of assets in a ploy to try and reduce what they'll have to pay to victims of these leaders.
They are a 2000 year old charity. They rich compared to other charities (e.g. the Red Cross has 1.8 billion net worth ), but even a for profit department store chain like Walmart can accumulate more assets.
Why would you tax a non-profit institution that has like 5K hospitals and more than 10K homes for the elderly, orphans and those with special needs?
They're great for the "right kind" of elderly, homeless and orphans. But they've got a long history of screwing everybody else over, for example, forced conversion of native american orphans.
Essentially, it's a loophole that you can pilot a "separate but equal" aircraft carrier through. And then fail to even provide that "separate" care, so equality is not achieved.