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lemmingsagain t1_j0pswiw wrote

Reply to comment by ColdJay64 in Scientology tower on Chestnut. Still empty after all these years. by narkj

They don't have to pay taxes so they can just let it sit indefinitely. Check out the weird empty storefronts in Clearwater. Take away their tax-free status and all of their unused real estate will be jettisoned.

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RoverTheMonster t1_j0q5r33 wrote

Why do we grant religious institutions tax exemptions?

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jbphilly t1_j0q6zwa wrote

A more important question is "why do we grant Scientology religious status like it's a real church?"

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JennItalia269 t1_j0qdsmy wrote

Basically, The IRS was being sued left and right by Scientology so they decided to recognize them as a tax exempt organization and Scientology ended all litigation.

The lawsuits are right out of the Scientology playbook. It’s fucking stupid and they never should have, but here we are. More can be found here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_status_of_Scientology_in_the_United_States

And: https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2017/11/12/irs-and-scientology-everything-you-want-to-know-and-more/?sh=48d0f6564042

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siandresi t1_j0qkard wrote

I imagine if an institution wants to not pay taxes, become a church and has enough cash (and scrupules) like many things around, it can just lawyer up and argue they are “technically” a religion. Do the spaghetti monster people have tax exempt status

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blowjob215 t1_j0r196t wrote

Pretty sure they’re a disorganized religion, i.e. they’re all out there on their own, believing in the great spaghetti monster individually, not coming together as a congregation to form a church

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mjg580 t1_j0qtjjx wrote

They aren’t any different than any other high control religion like Jehovah Witnesses, LDS, or other fundamentalist churches.

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MarekRules t1_j0sja38 wrote

Religious organizations should pay taxes, or else more organizations like Scientology will claim religious rights and exemptions.

Separation of church and state PLEASE. Why are we making churches exempt, they are just another business (whether you believe in anyone specific, this is still true).

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Embarrassed-Raccoon7 t1_j0srti2 wrote

We allow churches to be tax exempt for the same reason schools are tax exempt, they provide services and resources for the community. I’m not saying all of them but the majority do help the community and the economy. Separating church and state has, in my opinion, little to do with taxes. Now separating Scientology from “religion” makes sense to me but that’s something different.

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barchueetadonai t1_j0yy8h0 wrote

Taxes are the state’s ability to compel you to pay them whatever is decided, and for it to be in US dollars. How can you claim that separating church and state has little to do with taxes?

Schools are government-run institutions and are a requirement for every child. Churches are quite the opposite.

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classicrockchick t1_j0sw4pd wrote

Because Scientology sicced so many lawyers on the IRS, the IRS went "ok fine you're a fucking religion, now will you leave us the hell alone?".

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John_EightThirtyTwo t1_j0vb5om wrote

I don't see how you can give the government the power to decide what is and isn't a religion and still observe the First-Amendment ban on "respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

The government tells religions they'll lose their tax-exempt status if they engage in political advocacy. I agree it would be better if they just didn't give them a tax exemption in the first place. But you can't set the government up in the business of deciding which religions are The Truth and which ones are made up and dumb. (For one thing, they're all made up and dumb.)

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jbphilly t1_j0w1scx wrote

I agree, there's obviously a lot of sticky issues involved here. But the government does get into the business of deciding what's a real religion or not. If I declare my house the holy site of a new religion, and myself the prophet, do you think I'm getting a tax break out of that? Fuck no. So the question is already where we draw the line, not whether.

>(For one thing, they're all made up and dumb.)

My whole point is, some are vastly and demonstrably more made and up and dumb than others. A scam cooked up by a moist-mouthed creep from the 1950s is a world apart from a millennia-old collection of traditions spanning continents.

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Sendit57 t1_j0q7dzz wrote

Who are we to say their beliefs are any less valid than other religions?

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jbphilly t1_j0q8ev9 wrote

It's not about the validity of the beliefs, it's that the entire "religion" is transparently an abusive cult.

Although, we can also speak to the validity of the beliefs. While ancient religions like the Abrahamic or Indian ones might ask you to believe things without evidence, Scientology asks you to believe that a drug-addicted, serial-lying grifter from the 1950s holds the key to universal truth.

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skip_tracer t1_j0qcpe2 wrote

I have a complex about oral hygiene. I'm incredibly sensitive to bad breath, and I pride myself on mine being fresh. Every time I see vids or pics of L. Ron I wince at the thought of what his mouth must've smelled like.

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jbphilly t1_j0qdimv wrote

For real, that fucking video footage of his nasty-ass mouth ought to be enough for anybody to stay far away from anything he invented.

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sciencefaire t1_j0qdo9s wrote

I didn't know anything about his teeth but when I went to Google him, "L Ron Hubbard teeth" was like the 2nd Google search suggestion 😂

Yikes. He probably had massive tonsil stone breath too. Bleh.

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skip_tracer t1_j0s90zt wrote

I work with someone like this. You can literally smell him when he enters a room and doesn't even open his mouth. It's gag inducing for me.

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JennItalia269 t1_j0qe3nn wrote

Fucking hell. I feel the same way. Had to smell like cigarettes and roofing tar a yard away.

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downtownwawa t1_j0qek29 wrote

I agree Scientology is goofy and weird but idk the crusades were pretty awful and the Catholic Church routinely shields and protects their pedo priests all around the world. So when you say it’s “transparently an abusive cult”, you gotta look at the thousands of years of abusive a cult-y behavior of Catholicism, judaism, and Islam. Those religions have undeniably been worse for humanity and are responsible for millions of deaths, abuse, and otherworldly harm.

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jbphilly t1_j0qgiyy wrote

Sure. The difference is, while mainstream religions all contain examples of abusive behavior, with Scientology, the abusive behavior is the whole thing.

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downtownwawa t1_j0qhnel wrote

What? I don’t think you know what Scientology does. Like, do you think people walk in and get abused and keep coming back? Truly curious what you think is happening there.

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jbphilly t1_j0r3ev9 wrote

>Like, do you think people walk in and get abused and keep coming back?

Uh, yes, that's literally how cults work. Was this supposed to be a serious comment?

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AbsentEmpire t1_j0s49qg wrote

Sounds like any other fundamentalist cult like evangelicalism, the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.

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jbphilly t1_j0sgqzq wrote

Eh, Mormonism fits that description way better than the other two. Mormonism also makes explicit claims about recent historical events that can be flatly disproven, mainly stuff about the history of the Americas (tribes of ancient Jews coming over by boat, the existence of horses and metallurgy when we know those didn't exist here, naming the sites of enormous battles at locations where archaeology can establish that didn't happen, etc.)

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omygoodnessreally t1_j0qgvi1 wrote

You have to pay to learn their beliefs.

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ItsjustJim621 t1_j0qrv3t wrote

And that’s where they get you…you’ll get close to attaining the next level or whatever it is, and they’ll come up with some bullshit arbitrary revision earlier in the level, which you’re then forced to start over again and buy the new revised books.

People have gone literally bankrupt doing this.

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31November t1_j0r18nr wrote

Supposedly, religions are charitible, so giving them tax-exempt status will free them to help the poor and whatnot.

In reality, they use their tax exempt status to build 16,000 person stadiums with TVs in the bathroom stalls and keep the poor out during hurricanes... for Jesus (Note, this is a story about him opening his doors after initially locking everyone out.)

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_PinkPirate t1_j0r5dwy wrote

I want to know why religious institutions were allowed to get PPP loans when they’re already non-taxed. That was total bullshit.

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MaoZedongs t1_j0ru358 wrote

Because they employ people in their work. Just like most other non-profit organizations. The charitable work most churches offer was crucial during the pandemic.

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Dorigan23 t1_j0qhxi0 wrote

Because they're in charge of the government

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Mission-Curve4273 t1_j0r64rd wrote

I think we need a flat minimum tax like 20% for all organizations, whether they are businesses, non-profits, religious institutions, or whatever. Everyone should chip in for basic necessities of civilization, like roads, police and fire, courts, etc.

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eyevolve t1_j0shwi7 wrote

i can't wait for them to pass on the savings to us.

eggs are up like 500%

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Donotaskmedontellme t1_j0txl26 wrote

I think recommending "more taxes" should be punishable by death.

More of a bad thing is never good.

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justanawkwardguy t1_j0u4iqo wrote

So you like that, regardless of religion, all churches/synagogues/temples are tax free? I think they all deserve to be taxed, as part of separation of church and state. Maybe not more than a similar for-profit org, but they 100% should pay some form of taxes

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Indiana_Jawnz t1_j10hq36 wrote

Religious institutions not being taxes is a result of the separation of church and state. Taxing houses of worship directly entangles the state with religion far more than not taxing them does.

See Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York (1970)

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Donotaskmedontellme t1_j0u4rfn wrote

Well if we play that game you know that since about 90% of elected officials are Christian, if we start picking and choosing which religious buildings are tax free and which ones aren't, you know it's not going to be the Christians paying more.

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justanawkwardguy t1_j0u4u79 wrote

I’m saying they all deserve to be taxed, regardless of religion. Nice try though

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Donotaskmedontellme t1_j0u4ykp wrote

And I'm saying fuck taxes

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justanawkwardguy t1_j0u572c wrote

You do understand that taxing non profits like churches means you have to pay less taxes, right?

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SouthPhilly_215 t1_j0qvavq wrote

Why do we grant corporations tax exemptions?

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blowjob215 t1_j0r1msv wrote

Not all purchases made by corporations are exempt from sales tax. They get their tax bill as low as possible by claiming investments for future business, i.e. building a factory or buying new machines to put in it is exempt because it’s a capital expense necessary to generate future revenue, which will (ideally) be taxed.

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nolandeluca t1_j0sk5u7 wrote

Because they lobbied enough to pass that law, the Catholic church is the single largest landowner in the US and the world iirc

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AskMoreQuestionsOk t1_j0suqf7 wrote

Because they aren’t businesses that generate income. Money that you give to a church goes to a specific function - the food bank it runs, the roof and electricity, church services, the outreach program, staff to answer the phone and run the place, the local hospice, schools.

Tax them and they have to generate income, and that would mean taking a lot of money that would normally be given to one of its functions - the church food bank, for example, and give it to a government. That’s the opposite of what you’d want to do from a government standpoint.

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Donotaskmedontellme t1_j0txhpb wrote

Because they're considered charities. If you tried taxing charities, you'd get Ghaddafi'd by the end of the day.

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Indiana_Jawnz t1_j116m3s wrote

Separation of Church and state.

See Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York (1970)

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[deleted] t1_j116w1x wrote

[deleted]

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Indiana_Jawnz t1_j1191tf wrote

That's not all it says.

Please refer to point 3 here.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/397/664/#674

" 3. The tax exemption creates only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state, far less than taxation of churches would entail, and it restricts the fiscal relationship between them, thus tending to complement and reinforce the desired separation insulating each from the other. Pp. 397 U. S. 674-676."

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[deleted] t1_j11j32a wrote

[deleted]

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Indiana_Jawnz t1_j1249a6 wrote

Hernandez v. Commissioner doesn't deal with taxing Churches themselves, it deals with the question of whether payments made to churches are tax deductible as charitable donations, and ruled they weren't.

You are right that churches can be taxed and that there is a narrow window. That window usually relates to their participation is activities not directly related to or supporting worship or charitable works.

But the reason we don't tax churches is because of the establishment clause of the 1st amendment.

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ColdJay64 t1_j0r7iwd wrote

I found an update from 2019, not sure if this has already been shared by anyone: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/01/28/scientology-philadelphia-church/

Apparently they lost their tax exemption in 2017 and are one of the city’s biggest real estate delinquents.

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AbsentEmpire t1_j0s4f5l wrote

Sounds like the city should take them to sheriff sale for unpaid taxes.

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nolandeluca t1_j0sk25y wrote

This, yes we just need to wait for them to slip on taxes then the city can take it and finally give the old girl a use. Poor building, just wants some occupants 😢

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Covidicus_Vaximus t1_j0qmvt0 wrote

My church in NE Philly got a huge tax bill for land they claimed we weren’t using. Despite planting trees for a free fruit orchard and plans for a prayer and reflection area. Plus every year we host a live Nativity

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ArnoldShwarmanegger t1_j0qrhf8 wrote

I'm going to start my own religion and claim tax exempt status. All hail the Shawarma.

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nolandeluca t1_j0s18it wrote

Actually this building is "owned" by PMC Church of scientology and the taxes are roughly 44k a year. Which unfortunately they have been paying, this makes it so much harder for the city to take back.

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asforus t1_j0s87g4 wrote

That’s exactly what we should do

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