Why Do Churches Get Tax Exemption?

That's funny hearing that from an atheist. So Atheism is a religion now?

Non profit organizations that don't affiliate themselves with a religion, maybe... Ronald McDonald House, yes. Salvation Army, no...

It should also depend on overhead. Too much overhead, no. Low overhead, yes.

Money for charity should reach its destination and not be swallowed up in administrative costs. Too much administrative cost and let someone else try and do it will less administrative cost.

Losing my religion for equality
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/losing-my-religion-for-equality-20090714-dk0v.html

Opinion - Jimmy Carter

I started a thread on this, manifestly unpopular.

And you point is? Obama pays taxes... and so do 99 percent of all church goers...

Churches are tax exempt for too many legal reasons to list here. Chief among those are that churches are involved in charitable work that the government cannot afford at a reasonable price. It's a matter of economics, not just the constitutional and founding reasons that any commonly informed person undertands.

There are many secular charities willing to pick up the slack so that the vulnerable are not constantly brainwashed by religiophobes.

Are you saying only religious people are charitable? Then why the blatant and outrageous religious right wing push against medicare and food stamps? Toss grandma out into the streets and raise the retirement age? Your assessment of the issue from today's perspective is simply not true...

The Mormons spent how many millions to persecute gays in California? Does that sound like charity to you?

RexRed,

The point is that your irrational hatred toward religion is irrelevant. In democracy we have a political process designed to set up tax law. Everyone has their say in the resulting policy.

America has decided that religion is an important enough part of society that we should continue tax exemption.

Your anti-religious views are extreme. They are not held by most of us which in a democracy means you have to live with it. Sorry.

A History of the Tax-Exempt Sector:
An SOI Perspective
An interesting and easy-to-read document from the Statistics of Income (SOI)
branch of the IRS.

It is nice of you to assume I hate religion but consider, I am ordained clergy...

The religion I see today is not religion but a corporate cash cow...

Say you topple the Christian "corporate cash cow" what's to stop a secular non profit organization to ultimately take its place, and to become just another generic "corporate cash cow." I say this because any organization is susceptible to corruption. Won't your efforts to topple one corporate cash cow, just to be replaced with another be just an endeavor that wasted your time and resources.
Your possible rebuttal would be to make tax laws that tax "high overhead" non profit organization. Then does that mean you are willing to shut down science/ research foundations with high overhead cost that operate as non profit organizations because their important innovations that they discover aren't marketable enough to make a large profit margin and basically doesn't offset the overhead cost of the organization due to expensive equipment, the employment of world renowned scientists, etc.?

Val wrote: Say you topple the Christian "corporate cash cow" what's to stop a secular non profit organization to ultimately take its place, and to become just another generic "corporate cash cow."

Comment:
Government regulation and oversight...

The secular charities will not leave in their wake demoralized people trying to live up the their fantastical God's hypocritical standards...

Each and every case of overhead needs to be assessed by neutral experts and public scrutiny...

Air conditioned dog houses (Tammy, bless her heart) are out... Dogs should not be left in dog houses anyway...

Oh, so your idea is to tax a non profit organization because it's affiliated with a religion but not tax non profit organization not affiliated with religion, and also bring more government regulation than already setup. I think that's a bad idea. Why does one non profit organization get punished just because it's affiliated with a religion? What do you have against nonprofit religious organizations?

In one of your previous post you wrote: "The Mormons spent how many millions to persecute gays in California? Does that sound like charity to you?"
You do understand that if a nonprofit organization engages in activities that are unrelated to their basic purpose, they are required to pay income taxes on that money, right?

It is called, "separation of church and state"... That is why secular is in and religion is out... Novus ordo seclorum

There is no reason why my taxes should go to pay for mega churches, holy roller souls harbor psychic preacher freaks, snake charmers and science deniers....

Is this a service to society? Really?

Rather...

So you preach "separation of church and state" and yet you want the government to have the power to penalize or shut down churches if they default on their payments? Contradicting much?
I agree with the Supreme Court that an exemption for churches from taxes tends to reinforce a very healthy separation between church and state, more so than if the churches were taxed.

You'll have a stronger argument if you suggest that all nonprofit organizations must pay taxes.

Secular = charity
Churches = charity and religion

If you were Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist etc.. yet you were, for circumstances out of your control, homeless, is it ethical to have a Christian Bible crammed down your throat before being offered assistance?

Should your sexuality or preference thereof be questioned before being offered a piece of bread?

Should my tax dollars be given by the billions to churches that question my constitutional identity?

And what you mean by "healthy separation between church and state" is simply religious extortion and the trampling over our inalienable human rights.

Matthew 22:19-22
King James Version (KJV)
19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him [Jesus] a penny.

20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

21 They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

22 When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.

Comment:
It seems Constantine was the first to deny the actual message of "The Lord" by granting churches immunity from taxes. Now tea baggers feel it in their interest to deny the Lord's message whenever it suits their base of greedy rich religious people masquerading as Christians.

1 Timothy 6:10
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

You obviously don't understand what "separation of church and state" means.