\
  The most prestigious law school admissions discussion board in the world.
BackRefresh Options Favorite

Now's the Time To End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions

Now’s the Time To End Tax Exemptions for Religious Instituti...
vigorous coiffed deer antler headpube
  06/28/15
"I can see keeping some exemptions; hospitals, in parti...
sadistic stage cuckold
  06/28/15
yeah identifying hospitals of all things as clearly deservin...
Purple new version
  06/28/15
180
heady sapphire pit hissy fit
  06/28/15
Lol, Of course it is Was this published on huffpo? If so ...
Lavender adulterous boltzmann
  06/28/15
Prepare for your FB wall to be filled with rants of "WH...
Adventurous honey-headed keepsake machete kitty cat
  06/29/15
Not flame I've already seen one Facebook post saying this wi...
wild sinister field roommate
  06/29/15
Heh.
Purple new version
  06/29/15
JFC, what is this bullshit? This WAS NOT authorized by th...
Snowy sick marketing idea
  06/28/15
sorry but this sentence has been published & now u libs ...
odious brethren
  06/29/15
I'd love this just to watch it fuck the Mormons.
violent site antidepressant drug
  06/29/15
gas yourself titsmo
Lavender adulterous boltzmann
  06/29/15
Ljl
violent site antidepressant drug
  06/29/15
gas yourself
obsidian electric stag film haunted graveyard
  06/29/15
You misspelled Scientology but close enough
Fuchsia territorial house milk
  06/29/15
so Mr. Oppenheimer lives in New Haven just for the pizza?
motley incel
  06/29/15
...
rough-skinned exhilarant round eye
  06/29/15
Yeah, the hospital comment gives away that he's coming at th...
big property newt
  06/29/15
...
Purple new version
  06/29/15
fuck, I know him.
infuriating seedy market
  06/29/15
Does this idiot understand taxes at all?
Glittery walnut den
  06/29/15
he understands love and he understands hate. and he underst...
Purple new version
  06/29/15
...
Lavender adulterous boltzmann
  06/29/15
...
Glittery walnut den
  06/29/15
...
big property newt
  06/29/15
...
at-the-ready bawdyhouse sex offender
  06/29/15
Yeah the clear misunderstanding is that, unless NRA is class...
big property newt
  06/29/15
He misspelled universities
Razzle-dazzle nowag generalized bond
  06/29/15
mfcr End all tax exemptions for "nonprofit" org...
Cocky gaping
  06/29/15


Poast new message in this thread



Reply Favorite

Date: June 28th, 2015 9:28 PM
Author: vigorous coiffed deer antler headpube

Now’s the Time To End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions

Mark Oppenheimer @markopp1

11:16 AM ET

Mark Oppenheimer

Mark Oppenheimer writes the biweekly “Beliefs” column for The New York Times and is editor-at-large for Tablet. He also reports for The Atlantic, The Nation, This American Life, and elsewhere.

The Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage makes it clearer than ever that the government shouldn't be subsidizing religion and non-profits

Two weeks ago, with a decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on the way, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah introduced the First Amendment Defense Act, which ensures that religious institutions won’t lose their tax exemptions if they don’t support same-sex marriage. Liberals tend to think Sen. Lee’s fears are unwarranted, and they can even point to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in Friday’s case, which promises “that religious organizations and persons [will be] given proper protection.”

But I don’t think Sen. Lee is crazy. In the 1983 Bob Jones University case, the court ruled that a school could lose tax-exempt status if its policies violated “fundamental national public policy.” So far, the Bob Jones reasoning hasn’t been extended to other kinds of discrimination, but someday it could be. I’m a gay-rights supporter who was elated by Friday’s Supreme Court decision — but I honor Sen. Lee’s fears.

I don’t, however, like his solution. And he’s not going to like mine. Rather than try to rescue tax-exempt status for organizations that dissent from settled public policy on matters of race or sexuality, we need to take a more radical step. It’s time to abolish, or greatly diminish, their tax-exempt statuses.

The federal revenue acts of 1909, 1913, and 1917 exempted nonprofits from the corporate excise and income taxes at the same time that they allowed people to deduct charitable contributions from their incomes. In other words, they gave tax-free status to the income of, and to the income donated to, nonprofits. Since then, state and local laws nearly everywhere have exempted nonprofits from all, or most, property tax and state income tax. This system of tax exemptions and deductions took shape partly during World War I, when it was feared that the new income tax, with top rates as high as 77%, might choke off charitable giving. But whatever its intentions, today it’s a mess, for several reasons.

First, the religious exemption has forced the IRS to decide what’s a religion, and thus has entangled church and state in the worst way. Since the world’s great religion scholars can’t agree on what a religion is, it’s absurd to ask a bunch of accountants, no matter how well-meaning. You can read part of the IRS’s guidelines for what’s a bona fide religion here; suffice it to say that it has an easier time saying what’s not a religion. The site gives the example of the rejection of an application from an “outgrowth of a supper club … whose primary activities were holding meetings before supper, sponsoring the supper club, and publishing a newsletter” but which professed a religious doctrine of “ethical egoism.”

On the other hand, the IRS famously caved and awarded the Church of Scientology tax-exempt status. Never mind that the Scientology is secretive, or that it charges for its courses; or that its leader, David Miscavige, lives like a pasha. Indeed, many clergy have mid-six-figure salaries — many university presidents, seven-figure salaries — and the IRS doesn’t trouble their tax-exempt status. And many churches and synagogues sit on exceedingly valuable tracts of land (walk up and down Fifth Avenue to see what I mean). The property taxes they aren’t paying have to be drawn from business owners and private citizens — in a real sense, you and I are subsidizing Mormon temples, Muslims mosques, Methodist churches.

We’re also subsidizing wealthy organizations sitting in the middle of poor towns. Yale University has an endowment of about $25 billion, yet it pays very little to the city of New Haven, which I (as a resident) can assure you needs the money. At the prep school I attended (current endowment: $175 million), faculty houses, owned by the school, were tax-exempt, on the theory that teachers sometimes had students over for dinner, where they talked about history or literature or swim practice.

Meanwhile, although nonprofits can’t endorse political candidates, they can be quite partisan and still thrive on the public dole, in the form of tax exemptions and deductions. Conservatives are footing the bill for taxes that Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit, doesn’t pay — while liberals are making up revenue lost from the National Rifle Association. I could go on. In short, the exemption-and-deduction regime has grown into a pointless, incoherent agglomeration of nonsensical loopholes, which can allow rich organizations to horde plentiful assets in the midst of poverty.

Defenders of tax exemptions and deductions argues that if we got rid of them charitable giving would drop. It surely would, although how much, we can’t say. But of course government revenue would go up, and that money could be used to, say, house the homeless and feed the hungry. We’d have fewer church soup kitchens — but countries that truly care about poverty don’t rely on churches to run soup kitchens.

Exemption advocates also point out that churches would be squeezed out of high-property-value areas. But if it’s important to the people of Fifth Avenue to have a synagogue like Emanu-El or an Episcopal church like St. Thomas in their midst, they should pay full freight for it. They can afford to, more than millions of poorer New Yorkers whose tax bills the synagogue and church exemptions are currently inflating.

So yes, the logic of gay-marriage rights could lead to a reexamination of conservative churches’ tax exemptions (although, as long as the IRS is afraid of challenging Scientology’s exemption, everyone else is probably safe). But when that day comes, it will be long overdue. I can see keeping some exemptions; hospitals, in particular, are an indispensable, and noncontroversial, public good. And localities could always carve out sensible property-tax exceptions for nonprofits their communities need. But it’s time for most nonprofits, like those of us who faithfully cut checks to them, to pay their fair share.

http://time.com/3939143/nows-the-time-to-end-tax-exemptions-for-religious-institutions/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28219567)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 28th, 2015 9:43 PM
Author: sadistic stage cuckold

"I can see keeping some exemptions; hospitals, in particular, are an indispensable, and noncontroversial, public good."

Are you fuckin kidding me? Those fraudlie motherfuckers rake in money hand over fist and their admin costs and salaries are every bit as bad as universities.

Every institution that does not give away at least 75% of its donations should lose tax exempt statue. Maybe 85%.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28219668)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 28th, 2015 10:03 PM
Author: Purple new version

yeah identifying hospitals of all things as clearly deserving of their tax exempt status is very stupid. it's well known that hospital 501c3 status is fraudlie

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28219778)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 28th, 2015 9:48 PM
Author: heady sapphire pit hissy fit

180

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28219688)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 28th, 2015 10:07 PM
Author: Lavender adulterous boltzmann

Lol, Of course it is

Was this published on huffpo? If so a bunch of obamas SJWs will probably be on it by this weekend

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28219796)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 11:31 AM
Author: Adventurous honey-headed keepsake machete kitty cat

Prepare for your FB wall to be filled with rants of "WHY ARE MY TAX DOLLARS BEING USED TO FUND HATE???"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222493)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 11:50 AM
Author: wild sinister field roommate

Not flame I've already seen one Facebook post saying this with this article linked

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222611)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 11:51 AM
Author: Purple new version

Heh.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222619)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 28th, 2015 10:35 PM
Author: Snowy sick marketing idea

JFC, what is this bullshit?

This WAS NOT authorized by the LibArmy High Command

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28219959)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 12:14 PM
Author: odious brethren

sorry but this sentence has been published & now u libs have 2 defend it: "we need to take a more radical step"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222755)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 11:34 AM
Author: violent site antidepressant drug

I'd love this just to watch it fuck the Mormons.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222506)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 11:40 AM
Author: Lavender adulterous boltzmann

gas yourself titsmo

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222528)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 12:02 PM
Author: violent site antidepressant drug

Ljl

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222683)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 1:01 PM
Author: obsidian electric stag film haunted graveyard

gas yourself

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28223039)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 1:18 PM
Author: Fuchsia territorial house milk

You misspelled Scientology but close enough

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28223106)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 11:38 AM
Author: motley incel

so Mr. Oppenheimer lives in New Haven just for the pizza?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222514)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 1:13 PM
Author: rough-skinned exhilarant round eye



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28223080)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 11:41 AM
Author: big property newt

Yeah, the hospital comment gives away that he's coming at this from a liberal view, not a tax view. I agree with all of his points, but clearly hospitals should be the first to lose it. He's coming from the belief POV, arguing that we shouldn't have to subsidize people who we don't agree with. Hospitals are actually worse because they're profitable institutions and it's a scam. At least, you can say churches are more deserving because many would go out of business without that status.

I'm very liberal, but it's still really funny that most liberals don't think about tax/economic issues at all. Law students especially are utterly clueless, not in the sense that they're stupid, but that they truly never thought about it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222535)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 11:46 AM
Author: Purple new version



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222563)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 11:51 AM
Author: infuriating seedy market

fuck, I know him.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222618)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 11:54 AM
Author: Glittery walnut den

Does this idiot understand taxes at all?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222631)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 11:55 AM
Author: Purple new version

he understands love and he understands hate. and he understands the TRUE meaning of charity (government controlled rations and hospital administrator benevolence). how about you, bigot?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222637)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 12:02 PM
Author: Lavender adulterous boltzmann



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222677)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 12:02 PM
Author: Glittery walnut den



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222687)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 12:06 PM
Author: big property newt



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222706)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 4:20 PM
Author: at-the-ready bawdyhouse sex offender



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28224529)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 12:01 PM
Author: big property newt

Yeah the clear misunderstanding is that, unless NRA is classified as a terrorist organization, the NRA/Planned Parenthood are going to be tax-exempt for the foreseeable. So that's sort of a red herring.

I do think all organizations should have to pay property taxes though.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28222675)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 2:26 PM
Author: Razzle-dazzle nowag generalized bond

He misspelled universities

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28223597)



Reply Favorite

Date: June 29th, 2015 6:09 PM
Author: Cocky gaping

mfcr

End all tax exemptions for "nonprofit" orgs

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2922042&forum_id=2#28225247)