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From: baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion
Subject: Re: "Tax Supported" Churches.
Message-ID: <567@spar.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 5-Oct-85 17:46:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.567
Posted: Sat Oct  5 17:46:35 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 7-Oct-85 04:24:34 EDT
References: <421@persci.UUCP> <582@k.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA>
Organization: The Institute of Impure Science
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Xref: watmath net.politics:11346 net.religion:7901

>         Churches receive the benefits of many government services.  Among
> these are (1) fire fighting, (2) maintenance of the public roads, (3)
> garbage collection (except, of course, where it's a billed utility), and (4)
> police discouragement of criminality...
> 
> Since they receive government services without paying for them, unlike
> secular organizations, then they are being supported by taxes.

All quite true.  But the state receives benefits of many church services. ;-)
Christian (and many other) churches tend to teach things like deference to 
authority and consideration for others that reduce both the need and the cost 
for some of the very services you mention above.  There would thus seem to be 
some justification for the state to return the favor.  The problem is that the
laws that restrict the taxation of churches were drawn up in an era when taxes
were not as high as they are today, and when few churches (here in the US
anyway) could be described as wealthy, and that with the increase in effective
tax rates, it has become progressively more attractive to establish a church
for purely material reasons (need I name names?).  This brings about the 
present sad state of affairs where the state decides that it has to determine 
which churches are *real*, and biases have a chance to be expressed.  The
fairest practical solution is probably to tax all churches by the same rules 
as for other non-profit organizations.

						Baba