Churches may have to pay taxes, and members of Congress may pay politically
Some Republicans do want to tweak a portion of their 2017 tax bill that will now force nonprofits, including churches, to pay a 21 percent tax on the value of certain employee benefits. But most others downplay the problem or deny it needs to be addressed.
Tucked away in the new tax law congressional Republicans passed late last year with no Democratic support is a provision slapping certain nonprofits and charities, including houses of worship, with a 21 percent tax on the value of some employee benefits.
The expectation is the tax would relate to parking spaces and public transit passes. But those affected by the provision are genuinely unsure what exactly would qualify as a taxable expense because they still haven’t received official guidance from the Treasury Department.
Is this a good idea or not? While Republicans are saying this isn't going to effect churches and charities, one has to wonder what the real reason the Republicans put this into the tax bill. I would like to believe it was put in there to go after these big NGOs that are just tax havens for the likes of George Soros with his Open Society institute and Hillary Clinton with her 'pay for play' Clinton Foundation. Both those NGOs have evidence of corruption and interfering with sovereign countries. I'm all about taxing the billions donated to these groups.
LATEST NEWS Leaked memo proves George Soros ruled Ukraine in 2014, minutes from “Breakfast with US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt”
We noted in a previous post how important Ukraine was to George Soros, with documents from DC Leaks that show Soros, and his Open Society NGO, scouring the Greek media and political landscape to push the benefits of his Ukraine coup upon a Russian leaning Greek society.
Now more documents, in the massive 2,500 leaked tranche, show the immense power and control Soros had over Ukraine immediately following the illegal Maidan government overthrow.
Soros and his NGO executives held detailed and extensive meetings with just about every actor involved in the Maidan coup…from US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, to Ukraine’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Health, and Education.
But real churches and charities are a different story. Soup kitchens and small churches would definitly get hurt by paying a 21% tax. Like a small rural church with less than 100 members like the one pictured below would probably have to close it doors. A church like that is all about religion and doesn't have a lot of money to spend on fancy stuff. I would not be ok with taxing these types of churches.
Now on the other end of the church spectrum are these mega churches with stadium seating for thousands and millions of dollars in high tech equipment then these churches could probably afford to pay the taxes. I see these new churches in my town and they are more than just a church. They run daycares out of the churches now, have social rooms and even exercising rooms. They are operating more like a business and less like a church but they have the advantage of paying no taxes. That seems like an unfair advantage and I think those parts of the churches should be taxed.
When these NGOs are competing against private business for money and when they take in billions of dollars than its time to tax the shit out of them.
Source: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article215653425.html
Interested in joining or supporting the Information War?
Use tag #informationwar to post your own stories about the lies and propaganda being pushed on the public. @informationwar will upvote posts worthy of the cause.
Join the discord: https://discord.gg/JsXbzFM chat with like minded individuals like myself and share your articles to receive additional support
Delegating Steem Power:
Another way you can support the cause is to delegate SP to @informationwar.
Note: remember to keep around 50SP in your account so you don't run into any bandwidth problems.
How to delegate SP, join the fan base and more: https://steemit.com/informationwar/@truthforce/you-can-make-a-difference-join-the-informationwar-and-help-support-others-today
I think here is where everything relies on. I'm not a religious guy, but I can see why religion is important to many people in the world, it helps them to find meaning. Nonetheless, churches purposes most of the times are contradictories just as the Vatican City whose known to have enough wealth to end poverty. They always end up criticizing capitalism but they swim in pools full of money they make by the taxpayer of the churches. Taxing has never been a thing I really like but seems like this could be the start of something nice- at least for me - Churches have never paid taxes in 2 thousand years and now the time has come where all the income they received must be redistributed, now let's see if they enjoy the redistribution they preach for.
On the other hand, we have those NGO's that more as acting as a charity foundations work more like a fund to finance any political movement Plan parenthood, black lives matter and so many others.
In Spain we have Oxfam whose in charge of creating lies and financing radical groups like third wave feminism.
This seems like a very good move to make.
Yeah, it really bugs me when government and non-profits are in direct competition with private companies.
Yeah there is a lot more going on with the 501c than most know about. It makes the pastier and members of the church slaves.
Curated for #informationwar (by @wakeupnd)
Our purpose is to encourage posts discussing Information War, Propaganda, Disinformation and other false narratives. We currently have over 7,500 Steem Power and 20+ people following the curation trail to support our mission.
Join our discord and chat with 250+ fellow Informationwar Activists.
Join our brand new reddit! and start sharing your Steemit posts directly to The_IW, via the share button on your Steemit post!!!
Connect with fellow Informationwar writers in our Roll Call! InformationWar - Leadership/Contributing Writers/Supporters: Roll Call
Ways you can help the @informationwar
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by wakeupnd from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.
I’m guessing you know my stance on churches, but still, if they were to take Jesus’s words seriously, why don’t they follow Matthew 22:21?
That's a toughie to interpret. Most folks will say Caesar = the government. I'd say it means that Caesar is just a man an therefor can't own another man's life, property and money. But ya Churches always use that verse to claim even Jesus told people to pay their taxes and obey the government.
I'm a Christian and if you a lot of us by that I mean I'm trying my best to be Christian, if you don't know a lot of us then I'll explain later.
I tried to become a member of a church but it was unfortunately after I read the bible from page 1 to the end cover to cover, you know like a book.
I was not happy to see that most churches tell their parishioners to skip over inconvenient parts of the book that are fundamental to the religion. For instance was arrested only after he busted up the temple's money changers, think currency exchange with a big cut of the % being kept by the clergy, and those who were selling "holy water" which was actually distilled for medicinal use and nothing more and "blessed food" which was a gruesome and weird practice so I won't go into it.
The dude argues with the powers that be every chance he had even when he was a small child so that wasn't the problem. He was giving out their secrets and disrupting their business interests.
That's a big thing to skip over but if you want to sell motivational books and trinkets in the lobby or hot dogs at the fair you probably don't want to talk about this particular issue much.
My point is that when I hear a Christian church complaining about their money flow a few red flags go up for me. I would tell them what I tell all creative folk, A musician should play to earn their living, a preacher should preach and a writer should write.
If we want to do things like this we need to continuously add value and get rewarded based on the merit we earn for ourselves.
On the other hand,,,,, starve the State and cut off their money flow, disrupt their ability to rule over us. ;) Give away their secrets every chance you get and if they come for you,, well no one said being a martyr was any fun.
Maybe I'm too antiauthority to be a good Christian, even he said give onto Caesar what is Caesar's, I'll keep working on it lol.
I am not religious in any way shape or form what-so-ever. I believe churches & religious organizations have their benefits to society. You nailed it. The NGO's & Big MEGA Churches need to be taxed- while the COMMUNITY churches left alone. But HOW to draft that paperwork? Especially considering Government Regulations Make everything worse? It's easy enough to distinguish the Mega Churches & NGO's from a Community church. By How MUCH $$$ they Rake in Versus how much $$ the Expend on Benefits to their LOCAL COMMUNITY.
Yeah it hard to say. Best way might be just to tax them all and hope the small ones can survive.
No I think the small & community church still should be exempt. I'm for LESS TAXES. Not more.
Once NGO activities enter the civic space, they are not private. So (depending on how its implemented) public transit passes are rightly taxable but not parking spaces on the organization's private property. I think the provision potentially opens the door to state infringement on private community organization.
It's probably not parking spaces on the churches own property but probably parking passes for public parking garages and these churches let their members use them for every little event under the sun.
As long as they don't get them by virtue of their special status, as long as they pay for them, that does not seem to be wrong.
Hello
hi