Time to tax religion

Quote: missedhervee

''Maybe you need to update your legal training and then. And basic accounting to learn the difference between revenue and profit."

Maybe...maybe not.

Churches, like businesses, use revenue to meet ongoing expenses; the remainder is profit and is retained, reinvested, and replowed.

Why shouldn't churches or non-profits pay a tax on the money remaining after regular expenses are met?

What makes them special?

Certainly nothing in my book.

Quote: missedhervee

I post for my own edification and amusement: I've no interest in "impressing" others.

Forums such as this underscore the old adage "What fools these mortals be."

You didn't "shoot" me down, you simply got me to consider adding non-profit associations and groups to the list of those who should be taxed.

Trump's an atheist, He Gets Us: hopefully he'll tax them to pay for his expensive tariff and immigration policies.

Ka-ching.

Quote: AZDuffman

A tax to pay for tariffs, which are a tax?

How was University of American Samoa, really?

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The Supreme Court’s new religion case could devastate American workers

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Historically, the Supreme Court was reluctant to allow religious employers to seek exemptions from laws that protect their workers, and for a very good reason — abandoning this reluctance risks creating the situation the Court tried to ward off in Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor (1985).

Tony Alamo was often described in news reports as a cult leader. He was convicted of sexual abuse against girls he considered to be his wives. One of his victims may have been as young as nine. Witnesses at his trial, according to the New York Times, testified that “Alamo had made all decisions for his followers: who got married; what children were taught in school; who got clothes; and who was allowed to eat.”

The Alamo Foundation case involved an organization which was nominally a religious nonprofit. But, as the Supreme Court explained, it operated “a number of commercial businesses, which include service stations, retail clothing and grocery outlets, hog farms, roofing and electrical construction companies, a recordkeeping company, a motel, and companies engaged in the production and distribution of candy.” Tony was the president of this foundation, and its workers received no cash salaries or wages — although they were given food, clothing, and shelter.

The federal government sued the foundation, alleging violations of federal minimum wage, overtime, and record keeping laws. And the Supreme Court rejected the foundation’s claim that it was entitled to a religious exemption from these laws. Had the Court ruled otherwise, it could have allowed people like Tony Alamo to exploit their workers with little recourse to federal or state law.

The Alamo Foundation opinion warned, moreover, that permitting the foundation to pay “substandard wages would undoubtedly give [it] and similar organizations an advantage over their competitors.” Cult leaders with vulnerable followers would potentially push responsible employers out of the market, because employers who remained bound by law would no longer be able to compete.

Indeed, the Supreme Court used to be so concerned about religious companies gaining an unfair competitive advantage that, in United States v. Lee (1982), it announced a blanket rule that “when followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity.” Religious entities were sometimes entitled to legal exemptions under Lee, but they had to follow the same workplace and business regulations as anyone else.

It’s important to be clear that the Catholic Church bears little resemblance to the Alamo cult, and Catholic Charities certainly does not exploit its workers in the same way that the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation was accused of doing.

But the Court paints with a broad brush when it hands down constitutional decisions, and the Constitution does not permit discrimination among religious faiths. So, if the Catholic Church is allowed to exempt itself from workplace regulations, the same rule will also extend to other religious employers who may be far more exploitative. Should Catholic Charities prevail, religious workers can only pray that the Court writes a cautious opinion that doesn’t abandon the concerns which drove its decision in Alamo Foundation.