Yes, there is abhorrent amounts of waste, pay for play and outright theft in our government. Granted, as you can see from our discourse, nothing is as simple and clean cut as it seems. That was one topic. Multiply that exponentially and you'll start to see what it is like to run an entire country.
We all seem to think we can figure it out with a wave of the hand. Even our presidents think they can do that with a stroke of the pen. Not so.
your post summarizes whats wrong with this country. Crooks rule.
Yes, I would be for that as well and I do donate to many organizations.
The problem is that not all of America thinks like YOU. There might be a few million Jews that might get pissed when there synagogue has to pay more taxes. Same goes for a few million Christians. What about the Muslims? Do you think they won't want to press Congress to take tax exempt status from other organizations? Like maybe the NAACP or some LGBT rights organization or any number of non-profits that THEY feel are not charitable? You can see that becoming a huge shit storm? You think there is division now? That would be crazy.
what about them ? let them be..if the donations go back for charity what is not to like...if they buy clothes, buy medicines, buy food (100% with the donated money) and give it free for the people in need..Im all for it.
Best post. Did you not read that I am fine with your opinion that the church is not for the greater good? I don't care and it does not matter. You can have your little "church is evil" victory.
Now stop deflecting and obsessing over the church and answer the question. What about all the other organizations that also hold a 501C exception?
dude the IRS is lax as fuk when the question comes down to religious and religious exemptions. As far as the church..here is how it works: people donate money to the church. Church keeps the money and opens clothes and food drives which people donate clothes and used items that get resold back to the poor at very low price...see the church is profiting from both...since they are donations they are not taxable, since church is none profit they keep the buildings tax free.
PS: church and religion has never been for "greater good" are you crazy ?
Of course they don't all go back to the charity. I never said they did.
To be clear, I have no problem with "churches" losing their tax exemption. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet for churches. Obviously you find them not being for the "greater good" and should be taxed. That is fine. It is your opinion as to their worth.
I did NOT dispute if they should or shouldn't pay taxes. I asked if that would open many other (NOT CHURCHES) non-profits to lose their tax exemption as well.
what is "parsonage allowance" and what happens to donations made by people to the church, in other words do all money that are donated go back to charity ? You know how many churches are audited by IRS ? We can work with some examples like Joel Osteen or any televangelist of your choosing ..
So non-profits do pay taxes, we agree on that. I never said they pay ALL taxes. The point I made was that if you just arbitrarily take tax exemption away from churches, that opens the door to other non-profit organizations potentially losing their tax exemption status. So why not just eliminate all 501c's? Why just churches? Do you have an agenda?
no property or sales tax are paid by non-profit. Employees pay all the taxes that need to be paid.
No, you said "non-profits" don't pay taxes? I rebutted that with a fact that is in the tax code. Maybe you should try to focus.
we are talking about the churches...focus.
Oh, they do? Name one who pays property tax or sales tax?
PS: church = profit
That is bullshit...people who run nonprofit pay taxes...priests do not. People who run nonprofit do not have free housing...priests do.
Sar.... That would actually be a great idea, except for the fact that it would also put many other "not for profit" organizations into a tax liability mess. This could potentially lead to a large number of organizations that do so much, to decrease their outreach or go under.
Tax the church...all of them...
Nope to busy working and playing on the Florida beachs.
"The top marginal income-tax rate was 70 percent -- that's twice the current top rate -- when Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981, and from 1950 through 1963 the top marginal rate never fell below 91 percent. The top capital-gains rate was 25 percent during the 1950s and 1960s, and 35 percent during the 1970s. (Today it's 15 percent.) Yet the country prospered."
The reason America prospered from 1950 through 1963 even with those rates was because of this little incident a few years before that period where the rest of the industrialized world was blown to pieces and literally in piles of rubble. You may have heard of it. I don't know, something about jews and nukes, if that jogs your memory. A lot of people died, and a lot of shit got blown up. Then things started to change after we helped them all pick up those piles of rubble.
And about the 70s.....
Are you fucking kidding me? You're old enough to remember Nixon taking us off the gold standard, and the four miserable years of the Carter administration. I was just a kid then, and I remember every adult I was ever around bitching about the interest rates, and the unemployment, etc. Were you too busy with the key parties and the disco line dancing to pay attention at the time?
The top marginal income-tax rate was 70 percent -- that's twice the current top rate -- when Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981, and from 1950 through 1963 the top marginal rate never fell below 91 percent. The top capital-gains rate was 25 percent during the 1950s and 1960s, and 35 percent during the 1970s. (Today it's 15 percent.) Yet the country prospered.
Tax people that make over 500,000 more
Cut the military budget by 50%.
And I thought I was a politics geek. I've never done THAT.
At some point during the early George W. Bush administration, we passed the point where paying the debt off was even remotely possible, and it's only gotten worse since then.
Stop thinking about it. It's never going to happen. We couldn't pay the debt off if we wanted to, and were willing to let the government drive us into poverty with ridiculous tax rates. FYI I've had this opinion since about halfway through the Obama administration after his nosebleed trillion dollar deficits.
Borrow it, print it, spend it, FUCK IT! It's not worth worrying about anymore.
The debt is so high there's no hope. The only question is WHEN it will collapse, and how the leadership at that time will handle it.
As our person who has no idea what words mean, but loves to tell us about the DEBT.
Put it on the table. How would you reduce the debt. This assumes, that you have to run a SURPLUS on the budget, not a deficit on it :)
Try and let some neurons fire off in your noggin. Don't just say stupid shit without actually looking at it.
I am going to wait a while to answer this. I have already come up with a spreadsheet that I did about a year ago that would get us to about 10T in debt in 25 years. It really is a BAD spreadsheet because, well, I didn't do anything on growth. So in essence, it was a way to increase revenue by 400bn a year.
So let's see if you guys have any capability to do math. ROFL - I know the answer.
