If you won't tax an organization that will illegally spam text people outright lies about an abortion bill on the ballot then you won't tax anyone.
My company does lots of good stuff and when it does, there is a charitable exemption from tax for those funds. The catholic archdiocese in KC occupies one of the most ornate buildings in the midwest. That money could have gone to orphans instead of spam text misinformation schemes
You know, the Catholic Church in KC does do a lot of great things for the poor. Food pantries, shelters, clothes, support systems...all sorts of things right here in kc. I doubt there's many bigger charitable bodies in the KC metro than the Catholic Church.
Catholics (and the Church) view the legality of abortion as a terrible thing, and I don't think there's anything at all inconsistent about allocating resources to fight against that in the only way they can*. You can do multiple things at once.
*to the extent the Church orchestrated or was had any real role in the text thing, that's bad and worthy of criticism.
I don't think paying taxes would prevent them from doing any of that.
yes, loving this talking point that if the church had to pay taxes they would be flat broke and have no funds available to help the community
Nobody made that point or came close to making that point.
stone (and several others): the church should be taxed
dlew using the quote function referencing on the afore mentioned post: <points out all the good things the church does for the community.>
if your response to the suggestion of the church being taxed is to remind everyone of all the good things the church does for the community, then yes, dlew12, you are quite clearly making that sort of implication. That by having to pay taxes it will have some meaninful impact on their ability to provide services and outreach to the community. And yes, i realize you did not technically say those very words but this isn't an FBI sting where we have to wait for you to say the exact imcriminating words before we break through the door. I have a functioning human brain that has the capacity to infer meaning.
I realize you might be feeling a bit defensive right now as several posters ITT (as well as the super majority population of the state of KS) have rebuked your viewpoint on this matter, but let's dispatch with the semantics, shall we?
I’m not being defensive. You misunderstood my point and then doubled down on it.
Stone said the Catholic Church should help the poor/orphans instead of buying real estate and ornate buildings and supporting certain political efforts. I said you know what? The Catholic Church does do a lot to help the poor. And that entities can allocate money towards multiple worthy causes (in their view) at the same time. That’s it.
It’s a fairly common talking point (especially right now) that “why doesn’t the Church help people instead of meddling in politics?” All I was pointing out is that the church does a rough ridin' ton to help poor people. I think that’s something worth keeping in mind amid all the criticism. I think that gets lost sometimes.
W/R/T taxes, Idk how many times I’ve said it ITT, but if we want to tax non profits (or some neutral segment of nonprofits) that’s fine with me but I feel like that maybe is going to have some unintended consequences.
To your point (that I didn’t make and wouldn’t make): Would a tax impact things and be detrimental to the charitable effort? Obviously. Would it bankrupt the Church? Obviously not. Would it bankrupt some other churches? Maybe?
Somewhat tangential, but I'd be curious to know the actual legal structure of the Catholic Church, both domestically and internationally. How does it all tie together? For that matter, how do tax-exempt mega church leaders get so wealthy? Inflated administrative expenses (incl. salaries) to get to revenue neutral, and then just book deals and other products that flow through separate, taxable entities? So the exempt org is the marketing arm, and the profit arm is separate, though indistinguishable to a layperson? I've never really thought about this.