Why Are Religions Tax-Exempt?

prinz

minidazzler wrote: »

Given the state of the economy most people will agree to taxes that aren't taxing themselves.

You would be taxing themselves. If I choose to give €100 to the Church for a particular charitable mission, I have already paid tax on that. Why should I take a double hit for something where I don't receive a good or service directly? Presumably of course once you have taxed religions, the likes of Oxfam, Bernardos and the ISPCC and ISPCA would follow suit?

minidazzler wrote: »

I prefer to lump the church in their with the wealthy. I know of no priest that lives the life of poverty they swore an oath to. All have a warm house, plenty of clothing, plenty of food, cars, TV's and most other comforts. They are employee's and should be taxed as such.

(a) The vast majority of priests in this country do not take a vow of poverty. Poverty vows amongst others are usually taken when joining a particular order, particularly monastic in nature.

(b) Priests are paid under the PAYE system and pay taxes accordingly where due, PAYE, PRSI and Employer PRSI.

Ouch, two for two.

WIZE wrote: »

when i lived in Germany i had to pay church as in because i was catholic the Gov taxed me and gave it to the church :eek:

Opt out. Problem solved.

Kasabian wrote: »

I think this goes back to WW2 when the Catholic church recieved money to turn a blind eye to genocide.

You think wrong.

Thaedydal wrote: »

Pope Ratface knew about it, was complict in covering it up, game over.

Doesn't that flout the charter?

sbsquarepants

partyatmygaff wrote: »

You cannot tax a non-profit entity that relies almost entirely on donations. Just because you personally think the church should be taxed doesn't mean that it should.

Have you ever been to the vatican?
Non profit entity my arse!

Meh, they have subscribers, empolyees and a crazy amount of wealth built up over the centuries. Tax them to fuk, they're just a feel better about myself business.

Min

m@cc@ wrote: »

I'd say it's more than that.

I do too. For most it just has to be over that figure. I think church attendances has actually risen since the last census.

kincsem

Thaedydal wrote: »

The roman catholic church refuses to edit thier numbers when people leave or defect and the census is filled out per house hold so Mammy/Daddy fill it out even if thier adult children do not want to be out down as christain/catholic.

Why not tell daddy and mammy to fill it out correctly?

Run_to_da_hills

In America religions must register as a charity to get tax emption. One of the stipulations is that they do not get involved in politics. If they do as some have done in the past they loose this status and must pay tax.

coffee_cake

kincsem wrote: »

Why not tell daddy and mammy to fill it out correctly?

I'd say there are quite a lot who keep quiet for the sake of a happy relationship and think a census form is a small thing to be fighting about.
I'd also say there are numerous other reasons why they either don't tell them or tell them but get put down as catholic anyway.

af_thefragile

af_thefragile wrote: »

I just say any charitable organisation shouldn't be taxed as they work on donations, not on sales.

Its like if you give your kid 100eur to spend as a gift, do you expect your kid to pay a tax on those 100eur?
Same principle.

Its not the same principle. If the kid spends the €100 in a shop, hes paying VAT. If the kid decides to give it to the church (can't imagine it) it goes into a basket, and out the back of the church.
I can't see how the church is a chraritble organisation.
Theres a big difference between trocaire and the catolic church

prinz

Deleted User wrote: »

Its not the same principle. If the kid spends the €100 in a shop, hes paying VAT. If the kid decides to give it to the church (can't imagine it) it goes into a basket, and out the back of the church.

In a shop the kid is getting something in return. A good, or service. In a church he isn't. By the by the RCC is widely regarded as the largest charitable organisation on the planet, considering the amount of schools, hospitals, clinics, care facilities, training centres etc the world over.

Deleted User wrote: »

I can't see how the church is a chraritble organisation.
Theres a big difference between trocaire and the catolic church

Funny how you mention Trócaire by the way..

Trócaire is the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland. It was set up by the Irish Catholic Bishops in 1973 to express the concern of the Irish Church for the suffering of the world's poorest and most oppressed people.

http://www.trocaire.org/thecatholicchurch

Much of the funding for Trócaire is done via the Catholic Church. Not so big a difference after all.

General Zod

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

So what the difference between Scientology and RCC that allows the RCC to be tax exempt but not the Scientologists?

Farbeit from me to defend the RCC in Ireland but there is no actual Tax exemption status in Ireland for religions. The arms of the church that are run as businesses (veritas publishing for example) pay tax and are run as businesses.

The charitable arms have tax exempt status just as secular charities have. However, there's ho hard and fast rules regarding tax status for religion, rather there's some old legislation on what defines a charity:

- the relief of poverty
- the advancement of education
- the advancement of religion
- other purposes beneficial to the community

And the tax laws have provisions for charity.

Scientology Mission of Dublin Ltd. do not have tax exempt status for charitable aims as they have been unable to prove that they fit into any of the categories.

jackiebaron

af_thefragile wrote: »

There are banks and rich folks who get away without paying taxes. Their sum adds up to much more than the church makes. Also the church isn't a business. It works as a charity and charities are exempt from taxes.

The church isn't a business!! Who the hell are you kidding? Of course it's a business. The RC church is, as an entity, the largest landowner in the world.

partyatmygaff

jackiebaron wrote: »

The church isn't a business!! Who the hell are you kidding? Of course it's a business. The RC church is, as an entity, the largest landowner in the world.

So what? Owning land doesn't make you a business. It's hilarious watching people's exasperated attempts to have a go at Religion without even knowing the basics.

partyatmygaff

Deleted User wrote: »

Its not the same principle. If the kid spends the €100 in a shop, hes paying VAT. If the kid decides to give it to the church (can't imagine it) it goes into a basket, and out the back of the church.
I can't see how the church is a chraritble organisation.
Theres a big difference between trocaire and the catolic church

You do realise Trocáire was founded and is run by the 'catolic church' (sic) right?

m@cc@

jackiebaron wrote: »

The RC church is, as an entity, the largest landowner in the world.

What has that got to do with anything? Are they setting up sweatshops with the land they purchase?

prinz

m@cc@ wrote: »

What has that got to do with anything? Are they setting up sweatshops with the land they purchase?

Sure did you not notice during the boom they were knocking down churches left right and centre to build apartment blocks and carparks... that along with the rent they charge to themselves for owning their own land...... $$$$$$$.

partyatmygaff

partyatmygaff wrote: »

You do realise Trocáire was founded and is run by the 'catolic church' (sic) right?

Ya sorry I forgot. I wanted to use a charity as an example and trocaire was the first one I thought of.
And I do know that priests do donate generously to charity. But I still think even a small tax of say 5% should be enforced on the church

jhegarty

Deleted User wrote: »

Ya sorry I forgot. I wanted to use a charity as an example and trocaire was the first one I thought of.
And I do know that priests do donate generously to charity. But I still think even a small tax of say 5% should be enforced on the church

5% of what exactly ?

partyatmygaff

Deleted User wrote: »

Ya sorry I forgot. I wanted to use a charity as an example and trocaire was the first one I thought of.
And I do know that priests do donate generously to charity. But I still think even a small tax of say 5% should be enforced on the church

Why do you think so? Personally not liking the Church is not a legal basis for taxation and 5% of what exactly? If you agree that there should be a tax of 5% on all donations then I take it you agree the same for donations to local sports clubs, hospices and other donation dependent non-profit organisations.

wes

RockinRolla wrote: »

Who gets the money the church raises? Surely we could put it to better uses?

By giving it to bankers? I am sure someone already said that, but it surely bears repeating .

cornbb

Why should the Church be tax exempt?

They're not a charity - I only see them accumulating wealth, not redistributing it.

They don't create jobs (unless you count the tiny handful of priests that are ordained every year).

In what sense is the Vatican non-profit, exactly?

Also, saying that the wealthy don't pay tax is a pile of bollocks. Everyone is entitled to minimise their tax liability legally, but the tax bill is still massive for the vast majority of law-abiding rich people.

Corporation tax may be low at 15% but at least they are paying that much, and much more indirectly due to PRSI contributions, employees' salaries etc. Do priests pay income tax?

There's no way the church should get off scott free.

prinz

cornbb wrote: »

They're not a charity - I only see them accumulating wealth, not redistributing it..

:pac: They also provide doctors, nurses, teachers, aid workers etc the world over, as well as contributing to countless schools, hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, etc. Ever had access to a parish accounts? I have. Some are freely available online IIRC too. Go and come back to me with a parish that is seriously accumulating wealth.

cornbb wrote: »

Corporation tax may be low at 15% but at least they are paying that much, and much more indirectly due to PRSI contributions, employees' salaries etc. Do priests pay income tax?There's no way the church should get off scott free.

Corporation Tax, as the name would suggest applies to companies. Who are the shareholders of a religion? If you had bothered reading the thread then you'd see that priests and all other employees of the Catholic Church for example who come under the PAYE system do so, and they pay PAYE, PRSI etc like any other worker.

As a side note it always amazes me how some otherwise intelligent posters willfully and seemingly enjoy being ignorant of religions in particular "the Church" in this country.

partyatmygaff

cornbb wrote: »

Why should the Church be tax exempt?

They're not a charity - I only see them accumulating wealth, not redistributing it.

That's because you see what you (and to an extent what the media) want to see.

They don't create jobs (unless you count the tiny handful of priests that are ordained every year).

This is relevant... How?

In what sense is the Vatican non-profit, exactly?

In that they are not a Business whose purpose is to generate money for shareholders.

Corporation tax may be low at 15% but at least they are paying that much, and much more indirectly due to PRSI contributions, employees' salaries etc. Do priests pay income tax?

Yes they do. Strange that you don't know that rather important detail yet feel it necessary to offer your opinion.

VNP

"Certain members of the Catholic Church of Ireland were corrupt and evil. Let's say it was found that of Google's staff 10% of them were part time heroin dealers. Does that mean that Google advocates the sale of heroin? No it doesn't. The same applies for the Catholic church."

Just read this partyatmygaff, for flip sake, what does this have to do with the tax debate?
And if Google found out its staff were dealing heroin on their property would they prosecute these people as the law of "THE LAND" might insist, or just tell them off quietly, and send them to a different area, then publicly anounce while under scrutiny that "google law" can take care of serious crime in ireland. These people would not be in employment any more if found guilty of a crime on Google premisis im 100% sure.
Drug dealing and sodomising children are not crimes on par with each other. I wonder if a study were taken, how many priests have had involvement with the drugs trade? NOT relevant on this thread anyway.

There is a cost for many functions in or on religious property in this country, these should be taxed as an entertainment company would be, even tho in fairness the RC church do not charge huge sums for weddings and the like, still should be taxed in my opinion.

You also said the Irish govt may inefficently spend tax money
The Irish nation has a great charity record per head of population. Perhaps this tax take should be ploughed straight into a transparent charity fund, has an independant efficency survey of charity work done by the RC of ireland? doubt it. Im not knocking, i know some orders do great and thankless work that the state is only getting to grips with, eg the homless work with the franciscans on the quays in Dublin. Im a bit curious about your dogmatic persistance on this thread and that you seem quite young to be so involved in defending the rc, most irish under 30 wouldnt pee on a church if it was on fire.

partyatmygaff

VNP wrote: »

"Certain members of the Catholic Church of Ireland were corrupt and evil. Let's say it was found that of Google's staff 10% of them were part time heroin dealers. Does that mean that Google advocates the sale of heroin? No it doesn't. The same applies for the Catholic church."

Just read this partyatmygaff, for flip sake, what does this have to do with the tax debate?

Had you troubled yourself with actually reading the thread you would have seen someone else pulled the thread OT and I was replying to them. Then you would have seen my many calls to stop going off topic.

There is a cost for many functions in or on religious property in this country, these should be taxed as an entertainment company would be, even tho in fairness the RC church do not charge huge sums for weddings and the like, still should be taxed in my opinion.

An entertainment company?

Im not knocking, i know some orders do great and thankless work that the state is only getting to grips with, eg the homless work with the franciscans on the quays in Dublin. Im a bit curious about your dogmatic persistance on this thread and that you seem quite young to be so involved in defending the rc, most irish under 30 wouldnt pee on a church if it was on fire.

I am not part of the Roman Catholic church but I am a Christian. This thread isn't about the RCC exclusively in any case. I just don't agree with people bashing the Church for no real reason. People forget and ignore the good and hang on to the bad. Billions of Catholics and Christians alive and dead through the ages are being made out to be part of some evil organisation thanks to the actions of a miniscule minority. That is simply injust and I dislike that.

prinz

VNP wrote: »

"Certain members of the Catholic Church of Ireland were corrupt and evil. Let's say it was found that of Google's staff 10% of them were part time heroin dealers. Does that mean that Google advocates the sale of heroin? No it doesn't. The same applies for the Catholic church."Just read this partyatmygaff, for flip sake, what does this have to do with the tax debate?

Correct. Very little. However as has been pointed out above there were a number of references to abuse and molestation prior to those comments. Why did you skip over those?

VNP wrote: »

NOT relevant on this thread anyway.

Indeed.

VNP wrote: »

There is a cost for many functions in or on religious property in this country, these should be taxed as an entertainment company would be, even tho in fairness the RC church do not charge huge sums for weddings and the like, still should be taxed in my opinion..

They provide a social service that is open to all and freely available.

VNP wrote: »

You also said the Irish govt may inefficently spend tax money
The Irish nation has a great charity record per head of population. Perhaps this tax take should be ploughed straight into a transparent charity fund, has an independant efficency survey of charity work done by the RC of ireland? doubt it..

I'd have more faith in the likes of Trócaire than in a lot of others tbh.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/how-much-does-giving-really-cost-2161786.html

As you rightly point out we have a great charity record... so why are you advocating that some people don't have capacities to donate wisely? Should we turn around and say the government will tax all donations to Paws Animal Shelters and give it instead to the ISPCA? Surely if the people involved wanted to donate to the ISPCA they would have done it directly?

VNP wrote: »

Im a bit curious about your dogmatic persistance on this thread and that you seem quite young to be so involved in defending the rc, most irish under 30 wouldnt pee on a church if it was on fire.

...and, to paraphrase yourself....relevance? By the by once again it's interesting that you single out RC numerous times. You realise of course that the thread applies to religions? Not just the one you have most issues with in particular?

Lumen

I don't hate the Church, they've never harmed me and kindly let me use their building for my wedding.

However, I would like to see the following:

1. Pay your own abuse compensation. Socialising your losses puts you on moral equivalency terms with deliquent bankers. If you don't have the cash, hand over ownership of equivalent value land to the state with critical sites (i.e the ones with churches on them) on some sort of leaseback arrangement.

2. Hand over the schools to the state. This ongoing fixation with children just looks dodgy.

3. If you want tax exemption like a charity, register yourself as a charity and be prepared to be properly audited as such.

I don't think any of this is unreasonable.

VNP

prinz The point I was making is why use the name of an uninvolved organisation that has nothing to do with the topic and who may have alleged crimes committed by its staff, to some how rationalise some point about convicted selfadmitted child rapist priests.
Second There is no such thing as a free meal, the price of their altruistic social deeds eg weddings is not open to "all" in fairness. It comes with the price of Signing a form to guarantee their right to educate/poorly your children thereby ensuring their powerfull role in our educational system OUR tax pays for, their dominance in which has a dubious clash with the Irish constitution too from what i've seen (for all the constitution is worth).
As i said there also The likes of Trocaire and many others do amazing work, i have no problem with any church doing good work or going about their business, I do mind an organisation with its leadership abroad and no honest regard for the law regarding sodomisation of toddlers being involved in any manner with the school system they do not pay for. No matter how much of a minority of abusers there are or were, I know some abuse victims its not that rare.
I did not actually say to tax "all" charitable donations if you read what i said I merely suggested the efficiency of charitable donatioon usage is not very tansparent and in these time of corrupt executive behavior the religious organisations are certainly not exempt despite their sunday soap box and moralising.
Go into any shop in the country and you'll see collection boxes for the romans, thousands of them every chipper, filling station etc, I have yet to see bhuddists, muslim or scientologists collecting the countrys spare change on such a vast scale. If these other organisations were so prolific at gathering the coinage the same attitude would apply but thats not the reality and i dont just mean collection boxes. In light of the fact the tax payer of all religions or none will be helping out to compensate the ould rapists facilitators it's time the aligence with our national favourite was broken and the boundry between religion and politics was respected as is the intent in our constitution. No other religion has been allowed have much effect on the day to day life and as many representative making the laws of the land and the institutions we regret are not operating as amazingly well as we'd all love ha ha, thats why i refered to them most prinz , simple as that. quite a bit off topic but answers your question honestly,tis only my opinion.

Mark200

There's absolutely no reason why a church shouldn't be taxed. They're the last institutions that need financial assistance. They already have huge amounts of wealth that they are sitting on. Occasionally doing charitable work does not make them a charity.

And the argument that people should be allowed to give their money to whoever they want and therefore it shouldn't be taxed, is ridiculous. People voluntarily give their money to businesses or organisations all the time yet are still taxed on these 'donations'.

mickdw

Sure there are no irish parishes building up serious cash reserves. They are however sending serious cash to headquarters in many cases. Our small parish with 2 priests takes in 3k each sunday. There is also a parish shop which is staffed voluntarily & that pays the part time wages for the 20 hour a week secretary (part funded by fas/government scheme too). They also have a priests houses rented out long term.
This weekly income would cover the running costs be they insurance, maintenance & priest wages. This then leaves the huge income from the additional envelope collections where most woulf give 5 x the normal weekly amount. This would amount to 12 to 15k of a bonus about 6 times a year. Add in private donations, cash payment for services etc and it all adds up to a very profitable organisation.
Additionally, they qualify for money via tax rebate to charity (at least one local church does). which can be used for church repairs

hotmail.com

mickdw wrote: »

Sure there are no irish parishes building up serious cash reserves. They are however sending serious cash to headquarters in many cases. Our small parish with 2 priests takes in 3k each sunday. There is also a parish shop which is staffed voluntarily & that pays the part time wages for the 20 hour a week secretary (part funded by fas/government scheme too). They also have a priests houses rented out long term.
This weekly income would cover the running costs be they insurance, maintenance & priest wages. This then leaves the huge income from the additional envelope collections where most woulf give 5 x the normal weekly amount. This would amount to 12 to 15k of a bonus about 6 times a year. Add in private donations, cash payment for services etc and it all adds up to a very profitable organisation.
Additionally, they qualify for money via tax rebate to charity (at least one local church does). which can be used for church repairs

3k!! Where do I sign up.

That's money that could be going into the economy. How much on average do these loyal/sheep mass goers give?