Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
All religions should be heavily taxed. NO EXCEPTIONS!!
I’d give loopholes for good works and define them specifically
If you really do mean no exceptions then that is genuinely an unpopular view.
I don’t disagree with you on principle, but in practice, allowing the taxation of religious groups would create massive opportunities for abuse. Tax code can be structured to promote one religion and punish another, and you know for damn sure that our elected officials won’t hesitate to put their greasy thumbs on the scale.
Do they tax income? Investments? Real estate? Spending? Endowments? Salaries? Each of those would create a disparity in how much a specific group owes. Consider how the Mormons collect and spend money vs Catholics, or how Quakers don’t have preachers, just elders, while evangelical preachers earn hundreds of millions.
Any tax gives a massive advantage to the religions of the wealthy. You’d end up with four mega churches and a bunch of underground religious communities meeting in secret and sharing holy books smuggled in from Canada.
While I’d love to see churches start paying their fair share, I also see the way our tax code works now. We can’t get economic elites and the well connected to pay their fair share, what makes you think that it will happen with the religious economic elites and the religious well connected? It’s always the little people who suffer the most.
While I’d love to see churches start paying their fair share
Genuinely curious, what do you define this fair share as?
That’s a reasonable question, and I’m open to different points of view on what exactly that means.
In a general sense, I believe taxes are the price of admission for society. We all contribute, and we all benefit from roads and schools and firefighters and streetlamps and building inspectors and and and on. A church benefits as much as any other business, and really should be taxed like a business. They are in the business of fundraising, and money spent on fundraising and supporting the church should be taxed. I also think money spent on charitable works should be tax deductible the same way it is with other businesses. Money donated to churches in excess of the charitable work they do should not be tax deductible by the donor.
In an ideal world, that would mean paying income tax at the established rates, property taxes, payroll taxes for non-charity workers, and whatever municipal and state taxes are required wherever the church is located.
But as I said, that leaves the door wide open for abuse by politicians looking to promote their own faith. There are already corrupt policies promoting “social clubs” in dry towns, and morality taxes on products like cigarettes, HFCS beverages, alcohol, marijuana where it’s legal, etc. Don’t you think they’d find a way to tax the Satanic Temple into oblivion given the opportunity?
How many Christian holidays are promoted through the federal holiday calendar? Winter Break never doesn’t coincide with Christmas.
So yeah, in conclusion, churches that don’t operate as “not for profit” businesses should not be tax exempt, but keeping government out of religion is more important to me.
I upvoted you, but do disagree with this a bit, there are a few religions which set up food for anyone willing to come inside, like I went to eat langar at a Sikh temple during my friend’s wedding, and all we have to do is cover our head out of respect. Grab a plate, sit on the floor, and eat.
I randomly went with my friend a couple days later, and they still had food out, so it’s not a wedding only thing, but they actually have cooks in the kitchen most of the day.
My unpopular opinion is that people who keep throwing this stupid idea around have no clue what they’re talking about.
Religions / churches are non-profits. Their only revenue is post-tax donations. The people who work at the non-profit churches still pay income tax. The moment you start taxing a church, you allow them to function as a corporation. Not taxing churches is a fundamentally great thing.
