Question from a non-American… The 1st Amendment only establishes that religion will play no part in the state, right? And the 14th establishes equal treatment for all “persons”?
So, where is it stated that religious entities will be tax free? That doesn’t seem like a “right” to me. Isn’t the IRS supposed to go into every entity that wants tax-free status? Aren’t there supposed to be specific conditions that these entities must meet?
Is there case-law that these Churches of Perpetual Exemption exploit?
Technically, Churches are supposed to keep Non-profit paperwork up to date, and comply with the law stating that they’re not allowed to be involved in politics as long as they’re tax exempt.
The reason why so many churches keep their tax-exempt status is because the US population is over 70% christian of one type or another, and that includes the IRS workers. They have no political will to stick their proverbial dicks in the proverbial hornet nest.
The IRS has the legal right to audit any and all organizations. It’s an open secret that churches illegally take advantage of tax exemption while politically participating. And the IRS has plenty of evidence for it. Churches even send in videos of this once a year in March a few weeks before Tax Day, just to bite their thumbs at the IRS.
Essentially it all boils down to people in the executive branch being cowards and refusing the enforce the clearly defined law and even follow the precedent of the courts.
So, the point is, they’re not protected by the law itself - just by lethargy…
Which means, there’s hope. I’m sure there are enough mainstream Christians who are as shocked by this stuff as the rest of us? Can they be roped in to say “that’s not REAL Christianity” (yes, True Scotsman, but this is about campaigning, not logic)? Their reputation is at stake, after all…
Most christians believe their churches should be getting the gravy train because “charity” and “spreading the good word” regardless of whether their ministries are constantly breaking the rules.
It goes along with ignoring the numerous parts of both the old and new testament directly instructing christians to acts of violence against various groups. If people can consider the bible good and holy despite actually reading its text, they can believe any post-hoc rationalization for whatever behavior they choose to do or not do. People are often better than their religions, and like to shield their religions from actually following the rules they’re supposed to adhere to.
This is a boring and incomplete answer, but may show how the system works.
The IRS tax code, because of hundreds of years of compromises, is thousands of pages long. This has resulted from a country the size of a continent, with a gerrymandered representative democracy, and little political will for strong federal government.
So what you end up with are:
vague laws
specific rules
That is how you get the 14 point test on religious exemptions. Those rules were never voted on, the law could support a multitude of sets of rules. They were decided by some group of implementors of the law the to test if the law was being fulfilled, in their view.
Or, or the case of unfunded mandates, if they could makes rules that undermine the law because it is believed it cannot be fulfilled.
To the best of my knowledge Legislation, funding, and implementation of law in the US are basically firewalled against each other. (Unless the legislation says a million bucks for a sea park, but that is usually called pork barrel spending)
I wouldn’t gloss over the point that the vast majority of people who love and defend televangelism scams are elderly, and the elderly make up like 80%+ of the actual voters in any election.
Politicians know what side their bread is buttered on, and wouldn’t raise the geriatric ire of the people who make up the vast majority of the people who voted for them.
Same reason they do their damndest to make sure Social Security is funded. They’re not doing it because it’s the decent thing to do. They do it because they know if the Social Security checks stop, their heads will be on pikes outside the old folks home.
Any burst of regulatory zeal gets smacked down by the politicians who benefit from the status quo. It would be a lot simpler just to get rid of the tax exemptions entirely than to believe they will ever be enforced properly.
@Shash The 1st Amendment states that people can say what they want. Unlike the plans of politicians, no one holds a gun to anyone’s head forcing them to write a check to a BS artist. This isn’t a religious freedom issue, it’s a freedom-to-say-and-do-stupid-things-if-you-want-to issue.
@Quinquennial Citizens United is about a small film company that wanted to say things about Hillary Clinton she didn’t like during a primary. The government tried to stop them based on the content of their film. Not their tax-reporting status. This is a right that big massive media production companies constantly take advantage of (for example “Fahrenheit 911”),
Oh! Well, if the Koch brothers like them and not Tommy Lee Jones or Jake Gyllenhaal, I guess they don’t have a right to say what they want in public.HBO and Paramount aren’t funded by the Koch Bros. They are just massive, powerful, international corporations. Not a small media company. So they can produce whatever movie they like and release it at any time. The New York Times and the Belo Corporation aren’t funded by the Koch Bros, They are just a huge for-profit corporations. No one’s going to mess with them for speaking disparagingly of a politician during an election.
The SCOTUS actually reviewed this issue. Is the problem with the Citizens United film a tax issue? Is it an issue corporate structure? No? Well, then is it the content of what they are saying during a primary? Is that the issue? Yes? Then it is protected speech and the government has no authority to restrict it.
