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From: arnold@ucbvax.ARPA (Kenneth C R C Arnold)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion
Subject: Re: "Tax Supported" Churches.
Message-ID: <10447@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 22-Sep-85 23:08:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.10447
Posted: Sun Sep 22 23:08:05 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Sep-85 03:12:53 EDT
References: <1072@ulysses.UUCP> <607@hou2g.UUCP> <5847@cbscc.UUCP> <1673@dciem.UUCP> <5945@cbscc.UUCP>
Reply-To: arnold@ucbvax.UUCP (Kenneth C R C Arnold)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 54
Xref: watmath net.politics:11140 net.religion:7746

In article <5945@cbscc.UUCP> pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul M. Dubuc) writes:
>In article <1673@dciem.UUCP> mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) writes:
>>
>>I thought that the US already did support all churches with tax money.
>>Aren't they tax-exempt, which is the same thing as paying the proper tax
>>and then being given it back.
>
>If tax exemption is going to be construed as tax support, then the
>govenment may easily take the view that it owns all of your paycheck.
>If you pay 30%, then the 70% is exempted by grace.  That 70% may then
>be seen as an expenditure of the state, therefore giving the state
>a vested interest in what you do with your money.
>
>Hopefully, tax exemption itself (whatever the amount "exempted") is
>a right recognized by the government, not a benefit granted by it.
>The latter implies government control over the one receiving the
>benefit.
>
>Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd

Hm.  Let's see.  I have to agree that Martin is wrong to state the
exact equivalence he does.  Choosing not to tax is not exactly the same
as collecting and returning the money.  The paper work is *much* less
:->, and, for essentially the reasons enumerated by Paul, there is a
lack of exact moral equivalence.

However, tax exemption is a form of subsidy.  If we ignore deficit
spending (pretend we are talking about taxation in a state where the
budget must be balanced by law), it works out about something like
this:
	Say there are 10 people paying taxes to support a $100 budget.
	Assuming roughly comparable means, everybody would pay $10.
	Now, exempt one of those 10 people from paying taxes.  Now it's
	approximately $11.11 per person for the other 9.  The smaller
	tax base caused by exemption increases the tax load on non-
	exempt people.

This is not a statement of intrinsic pre-ownership of resources by the
government (which is bad), but a matter of simple bookkeeping.  If, by
exempting one group, you make me pay more, I am *de facto* subsidizing
that group.  If I didn't pay more to cover what would otherwise be
their contribution, they would have to use resources on paying taxes
that they currently, under their exemption, get to use elsewhere.

In this fashion, under current tax law, I support charities, political
groups, environmental groups, energy savings (and thereby energy saving
companies), schools, medicine, corporate capital improvements, and many
other things.  If you pay taxes, you do too.

Now that we have that clear, some discussion of which exemptions are
valid for public policy reasons, and which are not, is in order.  I
have strong views on this, but, one thing at a time...

		Ken Arnold


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