I am hypertensive. This is a new development caused by watching TBN, the Trinity Broadcasting Network. In an effort to better understand the religious right, I have been exposing myself to it in measured doses, as my health allows. In this post, and many to follow, I will be sharing my observations, analysis, and conclusions about the religious right, which have been, and are being, gleaned from sources from the Bible to TBN to the Internet.
This first post on the subject will concern the tax exemption of religious organizations.
TBN helped me to solidify the argument that churches and religious organizations should be taxed. They are simply profitable businesses run by the religious right, nothing more. They exist only to make their founders and executives wealthy.
I excised the following from the IRS website. It is from the IRS document entitled tax guide for Churches and Religious Organizations:
Churches and religious organizations, like many other charitable organizations, qualify for exemption from federal income tax under IRC section 501(c)(3) and are generally eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions. To qualify for tax-exempt status, such an organization must meet the following requirements (covered in greater detail throughout this publication):
1. the organization must be organized and operated exclusively for religious, educational, scientific, or other charitable purposes,
2. net earnings may not inure to the benefit of any private individual or shareholder,
3. no substantial part of its activity may be attempting to influence legislation,
4. the organization may not intervene in political campaigns, and
5. the organization’s purposes and activities may not be illegal or violate fundamental public policy.
It is demonstrable that the most influential ministries in the world violate at least one, and most violate all of the bulleted requirements.
Just today, while trying to hold down my lunch, I watched John Hagee-who, for those of you who don’t know him, is a mammoth, waddling toad-man in an ill-fitting suit-deliver a convincing argument that I’m correct. The point of Hagee’s virulently right-wing diatribe was supposed to be to shame and scare his bleary-eyed congregants into, in his words, voting the Bible. He covered the standard topics, war, abortion, climate change, and the other things supposedly covered in a poorly translated document containing disparate parts, written by zealots, and slapped together over hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
That is to be expected. What was astonishing, however, was that he was bringing in US politics, and making no attempt to hide his love of George W. Bush. This being an abiding love, I surmise, indeed, a requited and likely consummated love, perhaps only surpassed by the exalted pastor’s love of the J-Man himself.
In this single, rambling pontification, Hagee clearly violated the 1st, 3rd, and 4th requirements from the IRS document quoted above.
Hagee’s corrupt ministry is well-known. I invite his sycophants as well as his detractors to do some research on ‘the Google’, and see what pops up.
Several days ago, again while home for lunch, trying to hold down a turkey sandwich under the regurgitatory onslaught of TBN’s creepy love-fest, I had the honour of watching the eminent pastor Rod Parsley give a sermon against the Fairness Doctrine. I’m not sure which book of the Bible he took the material from, but I know it was in there somewhere. Parsley is, after all, a disseminator of the holy word of some god.
Parsley even went on location to do his show. That was cool. If only he would deliver a sermon on hell and go there to make his point. I would even settle for a speech about Gondwanaland, or Mars, though I’m not sure what his holy book says about those places. Unlike hell, however, Mars and Gondwanaland are real and were real, respectively.
My point, I think, is that Parsley also violated the IRS requirements. Again, it was numbers 1, 3, and 4.
Both Hagee and Parsley doubtless violate the other requirements, as well, but it’s clear that in only minutes, they both violated the IRS rules regarding churches and charitable organizations.
I don’t mean to discriminate, so let me point out that virtually every church is in violation of those rules. I leave it to you to find convincing evidence to the contrary, if you are so inclined.
Let us do some math, shall we?
Let’s assume 40% of Americans regularly go to church. That’s approximately 120,000,000 people. Let’s further assume that those are all two-parent, heterosexual families with a stern and distant alcoholic father, a loving mother who is addicted to valium, and two children, a surly paste-eating boy, and a slutty, pantiless, cud-chewing teen girl in a scandalously short skirt, her lean, tan, and muscular coltish legs bringing a ray of animalistic sunshine to the dark discourse of Christian theocracy.
That family of four will have an income of $60,000, all brought in by the hard-working father, and they will tithe, of course.
There have been variations on the tithing theme, but since the word tithe is derived from tenth, let’s call it 10%. That average American family would give $6,000 per year to their church, as would 30,000,000 families just like them, for a grand total of…
$180,000,000,000!!!!!
Taxing that church income at 35% would put $63,000,000,000 into federal coffers. That would pay for the religious right’s favourite war for 6 full months, and glorious months of gore and mayhem they would be! It won’t come anywhere to financing the Iraq war for 100 years, but J. Sidney McCain surely has a secret plan.
Alternatively…
There are about 40 million Americans without health insurance. Assuming that means 10 million families of four, and that the cost of health insurance for a family of four is $12,000 per year, the total cost for insuring all of them would be…
$120,000,000,000!!!!!
So, if my math is correct, and sometimes it isn’t, and if my assumptions are valid, and they often are not, those good church-going, tithing Americans could provide health care for every uninsured American.
Most importantly, there would still be $60,000,000,000 left over for HD broadcast equipment for Rod Parsley, and gold-plated toilet seats and pork cutlets for Hagee.
Now that’s heaven.
Tags: Bush, church, crouch, Hagee, hypertension, IRS, jan, Parsley, paul, Religion, tax, TBN, Theocracy
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