Maine Jim (better known to the inky fingered reading public as Jim Baumer) has penned an elegantly vitriolic op-ed concerning the tax exempt status of the evangelical advocacy groups of the Religious Wrong. Here's an extract:
"With the an ever-increasing burden being born by the middle class to fund an unjust war, tax breaks being written to absolve corporate entities like Haliburton and a government moving towards its theocratic intentions in steady increments, I say the time has come for those who want their democracy back to call upon their representatives to enact new tax legislation. These new laws would be designed to tax groups like Focus on the Family, the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as organizations run by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson."
The full piece can be found here:
Finding Words: Let's start taxing the true culprits
Henry Abbott also glances askance at the role of religion in politics here, in an entry called The Money Problem
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2 comments:
If they breach federal tax law and advocate a partisan position. I work for a non-profit and we cannot (and should not) advocate openly political positions to the detriment of one party or another. Churches, regardless of size, are governed by the same rules, and that is how it should be. When the government tells you how to worship then one might have a case for imposing a narrow politicized christianity on a multi-faith nation.
How does being "small" somehow absolve one from being scrutinized? I'm with the Weasel--advocating openly political position puts tax-exempt status in question.
While on the subject of taxation, how about taxing private colleges and universities? Many are sitting on prime real estate, often in the middle of town.
It's time to revisit tax policy in this country. Whenever a sacred cow like churches or colleges are mentioned as being worthy of taxation, it draws the ire of many. Rarely however, does anyone seem to be concerned that the working-class bear the brunt of our current tax policy, which in my opinion, is a form of reverse Robinhoodism.
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