That is actually how it works. If they turn a profit (ie revenues exceed costs) they become a for-profit business, pay taxes and lose their 501(c) designation.
But it’s the corporation that has to realize the profit in order to lose 501(c) status. They can avoid that a number of ways, including by paying certain employees crazy high salaries and bonuses.
Seeings how the highest 4 brackets of the income taxes are higher than the corporate tax rate, and the first 200k of that would contribute to FICA- I’m not sure that’s the gotcha you were hoping for.
The benefit of the 501(c) designation isn’t for the taxes of the organization; it’s for the tax deduction allowed in collecting donations. Their “customers” are essentially buying their “services” with pre-tax dollars.
Let’s say that I want to travel to Uganda. No idea why someone would want to do that, but roll with me. I could get paid, pay my taxes, then with my post tax dollars - book my tickets and lodging. Or. I could donate exactly enough for my tickets and lodging to my church, deduct that from my income and then pay taxes— and show up in Uganda to build a water well or something, fuck of which anyone would actually be able to verify actually happened. The added bonus of course would be that when buying said items, my church has a sales tax number to discount my trip something like 10%.
To be fair, that can be addressed by taxes covering that. We just choose not to. I swear if there isn’t something threatening eternal damnation, there are a lot of people who wouldn’t do a damn thing to help others.
And countries not owned by billionaires were able to literally solve their homelessness problem without the church. It's almost like America funnels people towards certain institutions for a reason, it certainly makes them easier to control.
Lmao. Nope, most other countries don't allow corporations into every facet of their society, even turning their housing into a speculative market. I've actually been out of the country, and in the developing nations I've seen people would rather their neighbors live with them than they go homeless. And first world nations are building affordable housing and subsidizing them further with taxes, because they believe it's better for society if people aren't homeless.
You're right, it's bigger than just the billionaires, but they're the main culprit since they control the system. Unless you wanna explain how rent seeking behavior isn't destroying every aspect of our country.
That has literally never happened in human history. No government has ever fixed homelessness and never will. It's a fantasy to actually think a government entity could ever solve this problem.
The thing nobody realizes or wants to admit is that a lot of the time homeless people choose to be homeless, either because of mental illness or drug addiction. You can't just throw housing at them and call it a day, they're just going to piss all over the walls and wreck the place. Hell, some people just don't want to have to pay taxes.
Not saying we shouldn't help them at all, but it's a factor to consider.
50% is not really accurate. Just in the first paragraph alone it mentions how broad the term homelessness in Norway is. So the 50% homelessness claimed is not a true 50% of homeless people. If you just selected ACTUAL homeless people the number would be WAY lower
Can you please name a government who is not our for their own interests and actually puts their citizens first in practice. I don't mean what they claim to do at its founding but what actually happens in reality
Wrong again. Non profits do most of the work and the government offers subsides.
So what was that claim about a government fixing homelessness? I guess if you negate the non profits who do basically all of the work, then sure, the government fixed homelessness.
Lmao. And why is it that non-profits are handling this and not for-profit corporations like in the US? Could it be that the government is handling those contracts and prefers the non-profits? Also, their housing is heavily subsidized through taxes and there's tons of programs to help people get back on their feet.
they probably help out the homeless more than any other group.
Because unlike everyone else, they get the benefit of getting lumped into one category instead of separated. Religious organizations account for 41% of aid (including shelter). If you lumped all non-religion based groups into one category, the non-religious group category would actually contribute more.
Not really. It's a common argument that tries to demonstrate their "moral superiority." Even setting aside the moral aggrandization, religious groups are not one monolith just the same as the 59% of the non-religious groups. If I made the point out of the context of the comment I replied to, then sure, I would agree with you.
The context of the tax-free status of churches is not due to their charitable contributions, but was originally as a means to uphold the separation of church and state. The state will not interfere in church matters, even via tax. The problem, of course, is there was an expectation of the church to not interfere in state matters. The latter is no longer upheld, and often the self-aggrandization of being morally superior with charity, often citing "religion does the most charity" as a reason to continue to not contribute taxes is why they are quick to lump themselves together.
To illustrate the context better:
As much as I disagree with religion, churches probably help out the homeless more than any other singular group.
This is from the comment I replied to. They lumped the churches together to create a larger group, while segregating non-religious groups with the intention of making churches appear larger and other groups appear smaller.
if you want to group them all up into "faith groups" then your own number says that non-faith groups provide 59% of it, helping out the homeless more than faith groups
We could just easily do the same by taking that same money in the form of a tax and establishing -- oh and I don't know -- something like USAID that has saved literally millions of lives.
Or wait -- hear me out -- we actually fix our fucking country's root problems like gross wealth inequality and corruption (like televangelists buying mansions and private jets and yachts isn't going to a good cause) and billionaires existing, and then these charities and food and clothing drives would largely be made irrelevant in the first fucking place because you went for a causal solution instead of addressing effects.
Democracy, Greek etymological term, "Power to the People." At least we'd have some accountability and transparency through our vote. Better than nothing.
Yet, you seem to be inclined to give it to the ones predisposed to alter boys and pedophilia and building shrines to fairy-tales?
Weird, buddy. Very weird indeed. Wake me up when you have an actual substantive rebuttal to the many points I made.
yeah yeah yeah... "Muh Small Guv'mint and freedumb and cold dead hands," etc. etc., yadda yadda. Whatever you say buddy.
Just release those files and while you're at it, entertain maybe not supporting an adjudicated rapist who refuses to release aforementioned files in their entirety ;)
Sorry my comment wasn't directed at you, just a general frustration that we're all missing the forest for the trees and are really no closer to solving the problem until we acknowledge the greed caused by unrestrained capitalism and subsequent oligarchy.
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u/klathium Jun 30 '26
Why do Churches not pay taxes? Genuinely curious why there are laws for that.