What would happen if churches/religions/cults lost their tax exempt status?

Question

What would people say if all churches,religions,cults money books were open for the public to view? Would membership in them decline or increase? What do they have to hide by being tax exempt ? Would things improve in our country if they had to pay taxes along with everyone else? Could it happen one day? Does anyone know of any churches that the money books are closed to the public?

Answer 1

1. Their records are open for inspection by the government. Starting this Janurary 2007, new provisions of the Patriot Act make it even harder to get a tax exempt status and their records are open for inspection. What is still hidden from the government is the list of donors. (More about that later.)

2. Membership would probably remain unchanged. People do not join churches and religions because of the tax exempt status. They join for religious reasons.

3. They do not have tax free status because they have something to hide. They have tax free status because that is how our government is set up. It is a church/state issue. If the state could tax churches, it could control them by having a high tax rate, getting a record of every single person who donates, etc. ( FYI, that is now Nazi Germany got the names of many Jews, by requiring the various synagogues to turn in membership and donor lists.) Right now, you can donate and unless YOU want to write the donation off on the taxes, there is no way they can tell you gave money to a particular church.

4. If churches had to pay taxes and had no tax exempt status, people probably would give less to religious organizations because there would be no tax write off. And as our government has shown in the past, give it more money, it just spends more money.

5. It can happen. When the Mormon Church was not allowing blacks to be senior leaders, the government threatened to cut its tax exempt status. Suddenly, the head of the Church has Devine Revelation #2 and said it was OK for blacks to be senior leaders. Today, some of the "religious groups" are apparently sending money to terrorist groups in Palestine. They probably will lose their tax free status if that is proven.

6. Most churches do their best not to let the government review their books. However, they are suppose to have oversite by either higher church authority (Catholic Church) or by a lay committee. As we see with the recently discovered embezzelment scandals, that does not seem to work very well. Along with the good, we have to take the bad.

Answer 2

It would be a GIANT influx of cash to the federal government in income taxes, to local governments (especially school districts) for property taxes, and it would subject them to much greater scrutiny by both.

The result would not lower their membership or services, but it would make citizens themselves pay much lower taxes.

The books can be closed to the public on a church, but not to the IRS.

It is unlikely that it will happen, but I work with tax exempt local governments and am very much in favor of it. Consider that Harvard and the Benny Hinn fellowship and the Catholic Church and the Church of Scientology pay no taxes, and you do.

Answer 3

Being tax exempt has NOTHING to do with their records being public or not public. For example, YOU are not tax exempt, but you financial records are not public record. That said, every church I have ever attended passes out financial reports to anyone that asks.

Answer 4

you're the two a c4 or a c3, reckoning on no count in case you're political. ************* For idiots who nevertheless are not getting it, right it incredibly is the scandal: Jeremiah Wright's church (a 501(c)3), is often eye-catching in political speech and the endorsement of applicants and by no ability challenged. Conservative political communities using for 501(c)4 are denied by ability of non-reaction. The IRS lawyer now on trial earlier Congress is a radical very own chum of the two Obama and Wright.

Answer 5

what a nob