General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Does anyone else think it's time to tax the churches? [View all]zwyziec
(173 posts)should be taxed.
Let's start with property tax first. If you own a home or a business you are subsidizing all the non-profit religious organizations in your country. For the entire USA that means more than $1.5 trillion in untaxed church property including:
churches, schools, diocesan offices, bishops residences, clergy residences, cemeteries, hospitals, universities, retreat facilities, youth camps, megachurches, store front churches, convents, seminaries and all the companies who supply products to those churches including wine, hosts and religious items.
I did a study two years ago which included Wisconsin assessors office and spoke to the State Assessor. My goal was to find out how to calculate the total amount of untaxed church property in that state. He said I would have to go county by county and look at each county map and then make an assumption about the value of that plot. I told him that sounded very difficult, couldn't I just purchase a report from his office? His reply was this: "We don't keep those values because if we did we'd have to publish them and if we did publish them, that would make a lot of people very, very angry."
I also did state by state review of their websites trying to locate these amounts. Few provide that information.
It is very possible that people who are fed up with the interference of these churches in politics, start local movements within their county to research and generate the value of untaxed church property.
My wife and I would be overjoyed to use our website business to generate and maintain a website that would compile and report on each state by state, county by county result.
This is the way the Creationists have taken over local school boards, city by city, village by village and town by town to spread their ignorance on our children.
If anyone is interested in this let me know.
Zwyziec