Gay marriage opposition kills IRS tax conformity bill – LGBTQ Nation

Idaho lawmakers have sent a tax conformity bill back to the drawing board because it would have removed an unenforceable rule banning joint returns from same-sex couples.

Members of the Idaho House of Representatives voted 54-15 Thursday to send the bill back to committee. The legislation is brought annually to make the state’s tax code conform with changes to federal tax code. This year’s version sought to remove a requirement for same-sex couples to file separate state tax returns. That requirement is now void because the U.S. Supreme Court rules last year that states can’t enforce gay marriage bans.

Gay marriage opposition kills IRS tax conformity bill – LGBTQ Nation

Paul Rolly: Mormon church moves to build a city in Florida | The Salt Lake Tribune

If you remember, back in January, I made this post "A Catholic City?" from Americans United concening Dom­ino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan's attempt to create a Catholic paradise, Ave Maria, Florida.  Now we have the Mormons following suit albeit for, what appears to be, different reasons.

The Mormon church is going to Disney World.

The church-owned Deseret Ranches is going through the bureaucratic process in Florida to win approval to transform rural farmland, used for 65 years to raise cattle, into a metropolis of a half-million residents within a 133,000-acre corner of Osceola County, not far from Orange County, the home of the world-renowned Disney resort in Orlando.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the project would be the biggest development ever planned in Florida. The Sentinel reported the Florida Department of Environmental Protection issued a statement saying the development would cause no "adverse impacts" to water, wetlands and wilderness.

But other state agencies are not so sure and want a more detailed review of the project's population densities on what is now ranchland southeast of Orlando International Airport.

Deseret Ranches is a for-profit cattle operation begun by the LDS Church in 1950. It originally covered about 54,000 acres in central Florida, but it grew over the years to 312,000 acres and reportedly became the world's largest beef ranch.

Eric Jacobsen, general manager of Deseret Ranches, says turning portions of the ranch into a residential and commercial development is simply a practical business decision.

And that brings us to Hemant Mehta's question, "why money that was tithed is being used — directly or indirectly — to finance things that don’t involve spreading the word of God,,,.  Of all the things you’re supposed to do with tithed money, building a shopping center or a full-blown community — even if profits eventually get used to promote the religion — isn’t on the list. And if making money is part of your Church’s mission, why are members getting tax exemptions for their donations?"

Paul Rolly: Mormon church moves to build a city in Florida | The Salt Lake Tribune

CEO Who Said He'd Probably Have To Fire Employees If Obama Won Is Now Giving Them Raises | ThinkProgress

In the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election, David Siegel, billionaire chief of Florida timeshare company Westgate Resorts, sent an email to all employees. “Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for,” Siegel wrote, but offered “a few facts that might help you decide what is in your best interest.” These included that re-electing Obama would “threaten your job” and result in “less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.”

Just over two years after penning that company-wide email, Siegel informed Westgate employees that instead of layoffs, he would boost their minimum wage to $10 per hour beginning in 2015.

In fact, according to Siegel, 2014 was a banner year. “We’re experiencing the best year in our history and I wanted to do something to show my gratitude for the employees who make that possible,” Siegel said in announcing the wage hike. He also recently told the Orlando Business Journal that “things have never been better.”

CEO Who Said He'd Probably Have To Fire Employees If Obama Won Is Now Giving Them Raises | ThinkProgress

You give religions more than $82.5 billion a year - The Washington Post

Matt Yglesias thinks we ought to start taxing churches. "Whichever faith you think is the one true faith, it's undeniable that the majority of this church-spending is going to support false doctrines," he notes. Even if you did direct the money toward the one true faith, it'd still be a bad idea, as "Upgrading a church's physical plant doesn't enhance the soul-saving capacity of its clergy."

Regardless of whether you buy Yglesias's logic, this raises an interesting question — exactly how much money are we talking about here? If, all of a sudden, churches, synagogues, mosques and the like lost their tax privileges, how much tax revenue would that generate?

Ryan T. Cragun, a sociologist at the University of Tampa, and two of his students, Stephanie Yeager and Desmond Vega, took it upon themselves to figure it out. They're not exactly disinterested parties; their research appeared in Free Inquiry, a publication of the Council for Secular Humanism. But Cragun is a serious sociologist of religion and the data seems to check out. The full scale of subsidies religions get is pretty staggering,,,

You give religions more than $82.5 billion a year - The Washington Post

‘Sovereign citizen’ claims deeply held Christian belief that tax laws don’t apply to him

Attorneys for an Oregon “sovereign citizen” couple hope to convince jurors their clients acted in “good faith” when they stopped paying taxes 20 years ago.

Ronald and Dorothea Joling owe $1.1 million in back taxes and associated interest in penalties after they stopped paying federal taxes in 1994, reported The Register-Guard.

Attorney Mark Weintraub argued that Ronald Joling has a deeply held belief that he is not required to pay federal taxes, which he claims was influenced by his conservative Christian views and teachings he’s picked up from the sovereign citizen movement.

Weintraub admitted to jurors that he finds those beliefs “totally wrong and unreasonable,” but he asked the jury to acquit him on tax evasion charges if they believe the 71-year-old did not willingly break the law.

The defense attorney said Joling’s “very conservative Christian” beliefs influenced his views on government and taxes, the newspaper reported.

Joling, an ordained minister and pastor of the Hope Covenant Reformed Church in Coquille, later concluded the constitutional amendment establishing federal income taxes was invalid.

That’s a common teaching among the anti-government sovereign citizens movement, and Weintraub said his client was advised by other adherents to declare himself and his wife were no longer U.S. citizens to avoid taxes and other legal requirements.

“They were wrong,” Weintraub said. “But they didn’t just make this up on their own.”

‘Sovereign citizen’ claims deeply held Christian belief that tax laws don’t apply to him

Busted: Utah man sets up church where everyone is a minister, no one pays income tax

How one can leave their critical thinking skills at the door of a "church" is beyond me, "All of Calkins’ [earned] income [from a "real" job] was paid straight into church accounts after he took his vow of obedience and poverty."
__
A three-judge panel in Utah’s Tenth District Federal Court of Appeals ruled against an appeal by

Kevin Hartshorn, a Christian minister who has been convicted of founding his church as a tax avoidance scheme.

In a decision issued Monday by the judges, upheld an injunction against Hartshorn and the Church of Compassionate Service, a body that the panel deemed to be an “abusive tax shelter.”

Hartshorn’s ministry was first sued by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Utah in 2010. The Church of Compassionate Service was accused of being a “tax fraud scheme” by the government. In the church, Hartshorn commanded his “ministers” to sign over their income and possessions to Hartshorn and the church. They were issued debit cards to use for their daily and household expenses.

[,,,]
“As the head minister of the Church of Compassionate Service,” wrote the judges, “Defendant [Hartshorn] has assisted individuals in executing vows of poverty and transferring their property to the church, and he has made representations to them about the tax consequences of doing so. He has told ministers they need not pay taxes on money they earn that is assigned to the church pursuant to a vow of poverty.”


Busted: Utah man sets up church where everyone is a minister, no one pays income tax

Council for Secular Humanism

The home in the photo (above) is the $1.75 million mansion of the Reverend Randy White, the former head pastor of Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Florida. While some people may be bothered by the fact that there are pastors who live in multimillion dollar homes, this is old news to most. But here is what should bother you about these expensive homes: You are helping to pay for them! You pay for them indirectly, the same way local, state, and federal governments in the United States subsidize religion—to the tune of about $71 billion every year.

We mention Rev. White because he was the impetus for this article. White and his mansion came up in a class taught by lead author Ryan T. Cragun. In that discussion, the other authors asked how much Pastor White pays in taxes on his income. The answer wasn’t readily available. Only a handful of publications in the sociology of religion have examined the finances of religions, and they are largely aimed at telling religions how to increase donations.1 Nowhere did we find prior research summarizing and detailing religious finances and tax policy, so we decided to investigate it ourselves. This article is the result. It took some digging, but we think we now have a moderately clear understanding of the tax laws regarding religions in the United States. What we found suggests that religious institutions, if they were required to pay taxes the same as for-profit corporations do, would not have nearly as much money or influence as they enjoy in America today. In this article we estimate how much local, state, and federal governments subsidize religions.

However, before we get into our calculations, we think it best to address a criticism that is likely to be raised about this article. By suggesting that these groups should pay taxes, we are likely to be criticized by those who think that religions are largely charitable institutions engaged in beneficial service or charitable work and should therefore be exempt from taxes. This criticism requires responses at two levels, because there are two ways to think about religious “charity.” The first type of charity is the type that most people think of when they hear the phrase “serving people’s physical needs” (feeding and clothing the poor, building schools, and the like). The second type is different and involves addressing people’s “spiritual concerns.” Council for Secular Humanism