Catholic Church to pay Taxes :O

[Seth]

Is the Vatican (being a sovereign state) a signatory to the EU?

I don't think the article is talking about the Vatican itself. I think the "about 100,000 properties, classed as non-commercial, including 8,779 schools, 26,300 ecclesiastical structures and 4,714 hospitals and clinics" the article mentions are the ones scattered throughout Italy that are owned by the Catholic Church.

So, is this advocacy for taxing schools, churches and hospitals?

The reason that we in the US do not generally tax religious schools, churches and religious hospitals is because the benefits of having them far, far outweighs the potential revenues which would be realized by burdening them with taxes...in addition to the free exercise considerations I mentioned before. This is why there is such a thing as a non-profit tax exemption on income to begin with. The Congress and the States have long recognized that the benefits to the public and the costs avoided by government (which would require increases in taxation) produced by non-profit charitable entities supported voluntarily by their members, which includes not just the Catholic church but every other church non-profit in the US, are substantial, important and valuable to the nation. Therefore, Congress and the States have decided to encourage charitable giving, charitable works, and non-profit activities by exempting all of them, secular and sectarian, from income taxation and various other taxes.

In short, foregoing taxation of such entities saves the government enormous amounts of money that it would otherwise have to spend itself, and get from taxpayers to do so by force, for services to help the poor, protect the environment and otherwise benefit society.

Because the Catholic Church is a non-profit organization (and each diocese and parish is independently organized as a 501c3 non-profit under US tax law), it qualifies just like every other legally organized non-profit organization for tax exemptions...SOME tax exemptions. Not everything the Catholic church does is not taxed, and they are still subject to regulatory fees and other government exactions for their ordinary non-religious activities such as building and zoning approvals.

The only reason anyone argues for taxing the Catholic church and not every other church or non-profit is simple anti-Catholic bigotry and mindless hatred. Catholics have been facing this bigotry and hatred for thousands of years, and yet the church endures. I'm sure it'll endure the opprobrium of the small-minded, petty bigots here and elsewhere and will continue to do it's good and charitable works worldwide serving not just Catholics, but the poor and downtrodden everywhere.

The Catholic church's contribution to civilization and succoring the poor and helpless is manifest and undeniable and has been since its beginning. Whatever its failings, the Catholic church has done more good and Catholics have given more money, love and personal labor to the poor and oppressed than almost any nation on earth, and has done so consistently for two millennia.

What have YOU, or any Atheist done that comes anywhere near the magnitude of love, charity, personal sacrifice and altruism shown by Catholics worldwide over the centuries?

Nothing, that's what.

In balancing the scales between the benefits to society, culture and civilization of the Catholic church and the benefits of atheism and Atheists there is simply no comparison whatsoever and the Catholic church tips the balance so conclusively and abruptly that the weight of history and truth against them ejects Atheism and atheists from the atmosphere at orbital speed and hopefully into the cold depths of intergalactic space forever, never to be seen or heard from again.

Even as a non-theistic Tolerist™ who does not believe any of what Catholics believe insofar as God is concerned, I find them to be far, far better people than any Atheist I've ever met, and I'd much rather hang around with Catholics than intolerant, bigoted Atheists any day.

[HomerJay]

The Vatican also receives €1 billion annually from the Italian state, so it's still doing better than it should (next job should be to axe that).

[Seth]

If the idea catches fire, it will be Atheists setting fire to churches...and the parishoners inside them...soon enough. We don't tax churches not because it's unconstitutional to do so, but because taxation has historically been the primary method for government (often religious government) to oppress disfavored religions and destroy them and we as a nation have eschewed that blunt-force instrument of religious (or atheistic) repression because of the great evil that always proceeds from interfering with the free exercise of religion by all, particularly when performed by government using the Mace of State as its weapon of choice.

Property taxes on churches that are the same as property taxes on other equivalent properties don't disadvantage religion; they just avoid giving religion an unfair advantage. The Supreme Court is pretty good at differentiating between level playing fields and laws specifically targeting churches.

Problem is that society WANTS churches to have an advantage, and it recognizes that the advantage is not in the least bit "unfair" because the charitable and altruistic activities of churches and parishoners by and large greatly exceeds the very minor costs to the community of foregoing property taxes on church property.

In short, our nation, as a nation, has accepted the fact that advantaging religion by exempting it from taxation provides far, far more benefit to society than would ever be gained by taxing them. It's no different from offering tax breaks to corporations that engage in businesses that are useful and beneficial to society by, for example, bringing many jobs to the community. While the amount of tax foregone in such deals may be large, the positive fiscal impacts of having the employees living, working and spending in the community outweigh the tax exemptions given to the corporation on its profits.

It's no different for churches or other non-profits. It's a political decision on the part of the community to stimulate and encourage non-governmental charitable operations that relieve the burden from government of having to provide such services at taxpayer expense.

In short, the community almost always gets more in return than it costs to exempt the organizations from taxation, which is one main reason it's done.

[Seth]

The Vatican also receives €1 billion annually from the Italian state, so it's still doing better than it should (next job should be to axe that).

I'm sure the Italian state gives other billions to other non-profit organizations that benefit society through such grants much more efficiently and effectively than the government could do so itself if such organizations did not exist or were crushed out of existence by oppressive taxation as Atheists would have done to the Catholic church.

Fortunately, most politicians actually represent the interests of their constituents and understand that the benefits the Catholic church (and other non-profits) bring to society vastly outweigh the costs of making grants and they eschew the sort of mindless, bigoted hatred that you show towards the Church.

And that's what Italians evidently want from their government.

[Seth]

Now if the idea will catch fire and extend quickly around the world. There's a church down the street that I'd like paying property taxes to our city.

If the idea catches fire, it will be Atheists setting fire to churches...and the parishoners inside them...soon enough. We don't tax churches not because it's unconstitutional to do so, but because taxation has historically been the primary method for government (often religious government) to oppress disfavored religions and destroy them and we as a nation have eschewed that blunt-force instrument of religious (or atheistic) repression because of the great evil that always proceeds from interfering with the free exercise of religion by all, particularly when performed by government using the Mace of State as its weapon of choice.

Shiiiit. It's been just in the last four or five years that it's been legal to buy liquor or beer before noon on Sunday around here. That was religion saying "Fuck You" to the guys who keep the streets safe and the electricity working all through Saturday night.

No, it most certainly wasn't. It was your own legislators who did that, not the churches. Here in the US, "Blue laws" or Sunday-closing laws evolved from religious proscriptions but they long, long ago became matters of secular public policy and legislative dictate and ceased to be religious in nature. Our Supreme Court acknowledged that there is a "legitimate secular legislative objective" in banning Sunday sales of liquor, which is that the government, in the interests of "regulating commerce," has the power to help ensure that workers get to work sober and well-rested on Monday. No, really, that's exactly why the Court sustained Sunday closing laws.

And guess who are the strongest advocates for maintaining Sunday liquor (and automobile here in Colorado) sales? Not clerics. Not even a little. Its the liquor store owners and lobbyists and the car dealerships, who want a day off when all of their competitors are closed as well by law. It's an egregious example of trade protectionism, not religious fervor.

And I'm quite sure the same is true in the UK, insofar as it is GOVERNMENT'S responsibility and authority to regulate liquor laws, not any church's.

So, you're entirely and completely wrong in your ass-ertion.

[klr]

the Vatican is now facing a new €600m-a-year tax bill as Rome seeks to head off European Commission censure over controversial property tax breaks enjoyed by the Church.

As the EC heads closer to officially condemning the fiscal perks enjoyed by the Catholic Church and introduced by the Berlusconi administration, Prime Minister Mario Monti has written to the Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, saying that the Vatican will resume property tax, or Ici, payments.

Mr Almunia said in 2010 that the exemption amounted to state aid that might breach EU competition law.

More here.

Oh joy, the EU is rowing in on this one.

[Seth]

My hatred of religion is only slightly eclipsed by the bullshit that are property taxes. You never own your property, you're merely renting from the state.

Here we agree completely. Property taxes are the sole remaining great blight of aristocratic monarchy that infects our system. Property taxes are based on the presumption that the "sovereign" owns everything and you have to pay rent on it.

No, this does NOT mean that I don't thing police, fire and other public services must be paid for, merely that one should pay as one goes for those services that one makes use of when one makes use of them, and not otherwise.

One should be free to live on one's land without having to every pay anyone a dime so long as one does not consume public resources while doing so. Only in that way can one be truly free. Property taxation is slavery to the state for the "privilege" of holding what is yours.

Even more egregious, however, is "ownership" taxation where the state demands that you submit to it a list of what you own and pay a tax every year for the privilege of owning that item.

[Seth]

My hatred of religion is only slightly eclipsed by the bullshit that are property taxes. You never own your property, you're merely renting from the state.

Who but the state and your guns make sure that other people respect your property?

If I make use of the State apparatus to enforce my property rights, then I should pay for that consumption of public resources on a per-use basis. Otherwise, I should be free to defend my property rights with my guns at my own expense without having to pay for State resources that I neither need nor make use of.

[Seth]

My hatred of religion is only slightly eclipsed by the bullshit that are property taxes. You never own your property, you're merely renting from the state.

Do you have a road going to your property? Will the fire department or cops come if needed? Sewage, water, trash collection?

If I use the public (or private) road, then I must pay for it. If I call the FD or the police, they should bill me for the response. If I connect to the sewer system (I had a leach field and no need of a public sewer system on the ranch) or water system (I had a well) or I need to dispose of trash outside of my property boundaries, then I must pay for those services.

Otherwise, I should be free to live on my own land utterly free from any obligation to any other person to do other than avoid initiating force or fraud against them.

[Seth]

My hatred of religion is only slightly eclipsed by the bullshit that are property taxes. You never own your property, you're merely renting from the state.

It is to be noted that the surface area of the earth is something that cannot be claimed to have been created through human labor. To that extent, a land tax is more justifiable than most or all other kinds of taxes.

How so? The government didn't create that real property either, so what is its right of claim to rent? In the US, the government claimed ownership of the land in the name of the public and then SOLD IT to private persons, severing it from the public domain. In doing so it relinquished all right and title to the land (in most cases) and everything on or under it (at least back east...in the West it retained subsurface mineral rights, a highly questionable violation of the Equal Footing Doctrine) to the private person.

So how is the government "more justified" in taxing land than anything else? The power of taxation is merely the brute force of government being exercised, nothing more. It is an act of expediency and an evil that is necessary, but like fire must be carefully controlled lest it destroy that which it depends upon for its very existence.

[Seth]

Seth,

We are clearly coming from different places here, but I am curious, what would be the ideal standards (in your opinion) for determining whether an organization should be taxed for its property or not?

No organization, company, person or estate should be taxed annually on its property holdings, ever, under any circumstances. Doing so both denies the right to ownership of private property and the essential liberty interest that people have in their property, be it real estate or movable objects. "Ownership" is meaningless if you are in effect renting everything you own from the government and are subject to being imprisoned if you don't pay the rent. "Freedom" is equally meaningless in such a system.

Taxation should be limited to specific and explicit use taxes for government services and amenities ONLY. If you don't use the service or amenity, you don't have to pay a tax, ever.

[klr]

My hatred of religion is only slightly eclipsed by the bullshit that are property taxes. You never own your property, you're merely renting from the state.

Here we agree completely. Property taxes are the sole remaining great blight of aristocratic monarchy that infects our system. Property taxes are based on the presumption that the "sovereign" owns everything and you have to pay rent on it.

A breath-taking non sequitur if ever I saw one. I think you'll find that the right to private ownership of property is explicitly and unequivocally declared in most written constitutions (at least in "the west"), and is similarly established in the unwritten constitutions of other countries.

No, this does NOT mean that I don't thing police, fire and other public services must be paid for, merely that one should pay as one goes for those services that one makes use of when one makes use of them, and not otherwise.

One should be free to live on one's land without having to every pay anyone a dime so long as one does not consume public resources while doing so. Only in that way can one be truly free. Property taxation is slavery to the state for the "privilege" of holding what is yours.

Even more egregious, however, is "ownership" taxation where the state demands that you submit to it a list of what you own and pay a tax every year for the privilege of owning that item.

That's what property taxes are usually about. Tax property owners on the basis that their dwellings require all manner of services and utilities to make them viable places to live in. That infrastructure usually has to be planned in advance on the basis of projected needs, all of which requires a lot of money. The property is yours, but there are consequences to that ownership, and what exactly you do with it.

But this thread is primarily about Johnny Church and the fact that it's been getting a free ride for so long. If you want to go off on another industrial-strength tangential rant, be my guest. But I for one won't be engaging you again on this topic in this thread.

[Seth]

I just rent because property is such a money pit of an investment.

That seems to be completely arse-backwards to me. Renting is pissing money away, especially when rent and mortgage payments are roughly equivalent.

I suspect rent and mortgage payments aren't roughly equivalent where he lives. Certainly they aren't where I live.

Rent is always somewhat more expensive, although at present my landlord is charging me just a bit more than he is paying for the mortgage on the brand-new house I'm renting. Over time, he will build equity in the house and I won't, and eventually (30 years from now) he will pay off the mortgage...and I'll be dead. In the meantime I get some benefits from renting, the most important one being the ability to pick up and move somewhere else without being stuck with a mortgage payment on a house I'm not living in (or cannot afford) if circumstances or my desires dictate that I do so.

The canard that everyone should own their own home is a fiction perpetrated on the public by Barney Frank and his ilk and the banking industry, all of whom have a vested interest in binding homeowners to half a lifetime of payments to the bank and obligation to the government (which now owns 99 percent of home loans in the US) for reasons of political persuasion and power.

Most people should NOT own homes, particularly in this highly-mobile advanced technological culture where one may be required to move long distances on short notice to find a job one is qualified to do.

In the past, when the majority of Americans lived in small towns and worked on farms, owning a home and some land was extremely important, but it bound one to the land with chains of gold...as I well know. Owning land and a home can be a huge burden to anyone, but if one's home is on enough land to support the family and pay the mortgage, at least one can work hard in agriculture and pay for it, which makes the land itself valuable as an income-producing property. But most people do not, and indeed legally cannot make income on their home in any city or town (due to zoning laws) so the property actually becomes an albatross around their necks because they have to leave the land to earn enough money to pay to acquire it.

And the nature of modern society is that one may be required to move across the country to get a good enough job to own a home and land, which creates a conundrum if you've already invested in buying a home but your ability to earn a living in that community evaporates.

Most people SHOULD be renters, and landlords should own the vast majority of urban homes and apartments. This is economically sensible because the renters may be transient, but the landlord can own enough individual units to make a living in that community renting to a transient workforce.

For me, having been bound to the land with chains of gold for 55 years which made me land-poor (a term meaning that one may have vast and valuable holdings of land that are so valuable that they are taxed at a rate that makes it increasingly difficult or impossible to pay the taxes and expenses of maintaining and operating the land from the only source of income, which is agriculture, which was exactly the case with me), the only reason to own land again is to have a place to build my doomsday bunker stocked with a multi-year supply of food. I'll never own a home again, and will rent because it gives me the freedom to pick up and leave at any time without obligation or loss of investment.

[Seth]

My hatred of religion is only slightly eclipsed by the bullshit that are property taxes. You never own your property, you're merely renting from the state.

Here we agree completely. Property taxes are the sole remaining great blight of aristocratic monarchy that infects our system. Property taxes are based on the presumption that the "sovereign" owns everything and you have to pay rent on it.

A breath-taking non sequitur if ever I saw one. I think you'll find that the right to private ownership of property is explicitly and unequivocally declared in most written constitutions (at least in "the west"), and is similarly established in the unwritten constitutions of other countries.

Indeed, but it's a fiction, not the truth. The power to tax is the power to destroy, and when the sovereign has the power to tax simple ownership of property, it holds all the cards in its hands and both your liberty and your ownership are a charade. You only "own" your property for so long as the sovereign deigns to allow you to hold it by munificently deciding not to tax it away from you, as was exactly and precisely done by many a British monarch to a disfavored person or group.

No, this does NOT mean that I don't thing police, fire and other public services must be paid for, merely that one should pay as one goes for those services that one makes use of when one makes use of them, and not otherwise.

One should be free to live on one's land without having to every pay anyone a dime so long as one does not consume public resources while doing so. Only in that way can one be truly free. Property taxation is slavery to the state for the "privilege" of holding what is yours.

Even more egregious, however, is "ownership" taxation where the state demands that you submit to it a list of what you own and pay a tax every year for the privilege of owning that item.

That's what property taxes are usually about. Tax property owners on the basis that their dwellings require all manner of services and utilities to make them viable places to live in. That infrastructure usually has to be planned in advance on the basis of projected needs, all of which requires a lot of money. The property is yours, but there are consequences to that ownership, and what exactly you do with it.

No, that's not generally what property taxes are for. Here in the US, property taxes are generally attributed to schools, and police and other services are funded by sales taxes.

If a particular piece of property requires infrastructure and improvements before it can be OCCUPIED or a home can be built on it (a reasonable presumption in an urban area) then the owner generally pays development FEES (not taxes) that are paid in direct proportion to the necessary infrastructure improvements if and when the property is put to use in ways that demand such services.

But that's not how property tax works. Property tax is paid based on the size of the property, it's location and allowable legal uses and is paid on a mill-levy basis, which means that the government imputes a 'market value" to the property based on an average of assessments of the value of surrounding lands of like kind and a tax is levied based on that imputed value. Those values change over time, both up and down, which is why there is an Assessor's Office which undertakes regular reassessment of property values and therefore the taxes collected. But property taxes are not generally based on the anticipated loading of public amenities and services in any direct manner, so you are incorrect, at least around here.

Direct services like sewer, water, electricity, police and fire are generally either paid for by fee for services used or through collection of sales taxes on transactions within the community's commercial activities.

But this thread is primarily about Johnny Church and the fact that it's been getting a free ride for so long. If you want to go off on another industrial-strength tangential rant, be my guest. But I for one won't be engaging you again on this topic in this thread.

Thing is, it doesn't get a "free ride" at all because it provides far more by way of voluntary, charitable contribution to the community than the government loses by foregoing taxes, and the church provides those services and benefits far more economically and efficiently than government could possibly hope to do so. So, it's actually GOVERNMENT (taxpayers) who are getting a "free ride" on the church's charity and altruism, not the other way around.

[maiforpeace]

Altruism? Charity?

Yeah, right - it has nothing to with heavenly rewards.

This is altruism.