Church Commits Tax Fraud… and the Christian Post Blames Atheists for Pointing It Out

ha ha… I just have to laugh.

Oh the comments on that site are ridiculous. I am hoping that there are more Christians that actually see the church as being in the wrong here, but just aren’t willing to post their opinion online. If the comments actually represent the majority of thinking…..North America is in more trouble than I thought.

Now do you see why we have to be careful with the atheist-baby jokes?
Someone might actually put up a headline like “Atheist groups advocate infantile cannibalism”. 😀
These people don’t have the words sarcasm and irony in their dictionaries.

Sigh… Counting to ten and going to my happy place…

Churches and ethics? Hahahaha

The Christian Post is a waste of time and bandwidth.  They might as well just merge with Fox News for all the news they accurately report.

For the most part they seems to agree that it was wrong for the church not to be paying the taxes, but they really gloss over it big time. Their main concern is the idea that FFRF specifically chose the church as the spot for the billboard. They believe it’s too obvious to have just been a coincidence.

I quite enjoy this post by Hunter Bonner:

The taxes part is true, that the church should have been honest about it
(did they know ahead of time that they would be liable for property
taxes if used in this way?) None of us really knows the answer to that
question, unless we goto that church and ask it. None of us are so that
puts that one to bed.

See how that gets glossed over? Okay okay the church should be paying the taxes, but they may not have known that and none of us can say they did so that can’t be discussed any further.

But I think the overwhelming, and glaring thing that sticks out here is
this. The odds of an atheist billboard being near a Christian Church,
and said atheist organization not knowing or not planning such a thing,
is more than just a bit coincidental.

Not really. In Columbus, Ohio there’s a church every 2000 feet. It would be more unlikely for the billboard to not be near a church.

So when the church has it
removed, because they don’t want that message outside their church,
confusing people, what happens? Atheists get all hot and bothered (as
if they weren’t hot and bothered already at G-d and Christians already
given who they are) and though to themselves
“How can we get some revenge on these Christians?” It’s pretty obvious
that’s this what it was. Couldn’t stand the idea of Christians winning
one over the atheists, so they inacted revenge.

This is my favorite part. There is no indication or evidence that FFRF specifically picked out the church as a spot for their billboard, but Hunter is going to assume so anyways. Hunter then goes on to assume that FFRF got angry about it and very literally pulls a quote out of thin air about the mindset of FFRF. This is the part where you have to shake the away the birds flying around your head like a looney toons cartoon and go back to read Hunter’s first paragraph.

(did they know ahead of time that they would be liable for property
taxes if used in this way?) None of us really knows the answer to that
question

So it’s okay to assume the mindset of FFRF but not of the church? The blatant hypocritical 180 degree turn from 1 paragraph to the next astounds me.

Goes right
against the following verse: “Vengence is mine…I will repay”.
Meaning that we are to not take it upon ourselves to enact revenge, but
leave it to G-d. If that church did in fact know they were responsible,
and chose to be silent even though no one was clearly pressing the
issue, then G-d would have taken care of that situation. Omission or
lack of acknowledgement of the truth is still lying.

Sweet. If the church did anything wrong, it is up to God and God alone to punish them for it. Franklin County Auditor Clarence Mingo is playing God, God dammit! Why can’t we just close prisons too and let God deal with anyone who breaks the law. Or is this “Only God can punish them” attitude reserved only for Christian churches?

But seriously, what a bunch of godless crybabies.

Indeed… indeed we are the crybabies here.

The whole point of view of the writer, Joseph Perkins, is so twisted, there can be little doubt of his unwillingness to contribute positively to the human experience for the sake of people, not just his religion.

I’m sure there are many more churches and “corporate citizens” who are getting away with nuanced economic fraud. If atheists are the watchdogs of the churches and other religious entities, who should be the watchdogs of “corporate citizens”…all of us. I’m fired up about “Occupy Wall Street” because I was one of the many “young people” who protested Viet Nam and I remember the long battle we fought and the sense of satisfaction when it was over. It took a long time, but we prevailed. Unfortunately, I’m tired and old so the young people of this generation will have to take over protesting the new war…economic class warfare. Churches should not be exempt from taxes when their congregations are tithing and paying taxes to support them. The only tax break the congregants get is a deduction for charitable donations, including tithing to their church and they only get to deduct up to a certain amount before the IRS considers an audit. Who audits the churches???

I was thinking: they spun the story so hard, they made rope.

Oh, there’s a huge church in the next town over from mine that owns a large shopping center directly across the road from its “main campus” (yes, it actually has “satellite” locations in surrounding communities). A lot of the space in the strip mall is used for the offices of its various programs, including a church meeting hall. However, there are several businesses, the largest of which is a Big Lots store, as well as several fast-food joints on the periphery of the parking lot. I’ve been wondering for years how much they’re getting away with by not being taxed, as I’m sure they aren’t, here in the Bible Belt.

“Goes right against the following verse: “Vengence is mine, I will repay.” Yadda yadda…”

I guess he didn’t get the memo about the whole pagans-as-the-scourge-of-God thing? 

Good post. 🙂

I find it interesting when lawyers argue the no legal standing issue as if interpretation of the Constitution is a local thing.

As  I commented on CP, a few of the Christians there are the perfect example of why we NEED these billboards.  And no, we’re not going to convince any of them, but we might plant a seed for someone else.

I think even the few who would begrudgingly admit there are good atheists sill insist it’s because our moral code came from God, and just don’t accept it.  It takes serious blinders to think your absolute moral code came from the same place as Deuteronomy/Leviticus.

At least they’re consistent: remember when The God Delusion came out, and Christians were up in arms, denouncing the tone of Dawkins’s “most unpleasant character in all of fiction” comment, but somehow never got around to showing how that it was factually wrong?
I can only conclude that they agreed that the God of the Old Testament is misogynistic, barbaric, etc., but thought it rude of Dawkins to point it out.

Didn’t the Vatican do something similar? If I remember right they accused the New York Times for “attacking” them when they exposed pedophilia. I guess thats just the religious mindset, sometimes: The church is always right and just and shame on you for proving otherwise.

Not its fair share, but just the taxes that are owed under the laws of the State of Ohio. 

How does Hunter know that God wasn’t using the county auditor and FFRF to exact that very vengeance? After all, God hardens whom he hardens, and all that happens plays out according to his will.

Non-profits of all kinds buy investment properties.  Rental income is exempt from  Unrelated Business Income Tax, so it’s a good investment from a tax standpoint.  They still need to pay state and local property taxes though, which they weren’t doing.

Only because the other option is to cry.

All you have to do is go to the County Tax Assessor’s web page and look up the tax evaluation.  Most sites are open to the public. You can look up specific properties by address or by name (including your own).  I don’t know about other states but that’s how it is in Texas.

Justice, sweet sweet justice pounding Christians in the ass.

I’m surprised that Clear Channel, purveyor of Right-wing shows, would accept an ad by an atheist organization.

Nope. Chuck Testa!

Most churches get around that technicality by rather than collecting a rental fee, just having the receiver of goods to donate the amount to the church once a month.   And also acquiring a tax write off for their donation. 

Joe Black, it’s a tax write-off for a business to actually spend money, like to rent a billboard. It would also be a tax write-off to donate money to the church, but I can see two problems (IANACPA) with that: 1) charitable donations are often limited, and 2) the deduction you can take for a charitable contribution is only the amount you give that’s in excess of any products or services you receive.

If a business spends $1000 on a billboard, the whole amount is a write-off. If they donate $1000 to a church and the church reciprocates by putting an ad for their business on its billboard, then it shouldn’t all be a write-off, and it’s much more complicated.

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s much more straightforward and probably financially beneficial to the business just to rent the billboard and not mess with the donation.

While I don’t necessarily disagree with this being done, it is important to point out how dissimilar this idea is to what happened.

The church here got busted not because FFRF found “another way to attack them,” but rather because a church having a commercially-leased billboard on their property is one of those proverbial “things that make you go hmmmm”.  

The Christian Post has a narrative where the FFRF thought process goes like this: “This sucks!  How can we get back at those fuckers?  Hmmm, maybe their taxes…”The FFRF’s real thought process was probably closer to this: “Oh, a church owns that property, crap.  Wait… a CHURCH owns that property?  Uh… a TAX-EXEMPT church?  That doesn’t sound right…”

“Omission or lack of acknowledgement of the truth is still lying.”
Oh irony, you’re so good to me!
Seriously, why doesn’t he just write out God? Reminds me of the kind of guys who like to talk about wolves without every saying wolf. It’s just sad and weird. Unless that was you Larry?

Exactly. The church set off all of the warning lights here.

On first thought, that sounds like an excellent idea.  What church would object to financing programs that help the people?  But on further reflection, probably a lot of them would.  Sad to say, but a lot of Christian churches just pay lip service to Christ and in reality only follow those teachings they find expedient.

Some Jewish and Christian sects believe that writing out God’s name in full demeans it. So they write ‘G-d’ instead.

So, how do they say it?  🙂