Montreal taxes churches

[Zoii]

Taxes now apply to churches in spaces not directly used for the expressed purpose of worship.
No more religious exemptions: Montreal is taxing churches

Is this a good thing? In my opinion long overdue.

 

[rambot]

So long as they are willing to tax ALL nonprofits I have NO problem with it whatsoever.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Fundamentally, I see no reason a Church cannot be taxed anymore than you could tax another organisation or a person. Even Jesus told Peter to pay the Temple Tax with the coins in the fish's mouth, and to Render unto Caesar elsewhere.

That said however, I don't readily see the justification for continuously extending the tax base. In the older days, of English representational models, the government didn't get a slice of every income, and taxes were only called as needed, for specific things, by parliaments (mediaeval times, mind you, when kings asked for money for this or that war).

Further, if we argue taxes justified for common causes, like police say, why must it be centrally collected instead of locally applied? Why must one then subsidise another? Or in this case, a non-profit and hopefully giving organisation, would it not be in public interest not to burden their potentially strained incomes - the justification for non-profit exemption.

I see no good argument for ever raising taxes beyond the State demands it. For Taxation is always unwilling, as no one willingly parts with tax money, or they would merely have given that money as charity or donation - acquiescing to taxation in hope of some reciprocal gain, or desiring taking from wealthier individuals to subsidise services you deem desirable, is not the same as willingly paying it. Churches usually just get money via donation, so in essence, you are just taking money from other people's charitable donations, therefore. Stealing from a collection plate is usually frowned upon.

 

[rambot]

To be fair, I'm SURE in PQ you have more than a few international corporations (no doubt SNC Lavelin) who manage to get away with paying no tax/almost no taxes.

So, while taxing churches and nonprofits may seem FAIR; if you need more tax income, why don't you tax the individuals/companies who ACTUALLY have the money?

 

[FireDragon76]

It's just trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip, all it will do is destroy many churches.

 

[dzheremi]

Churches usually just get money via donation, so in essence, you are just taking money from other people's charitable donations, therefore. Stealing from a collection plate is usually frowned upon.

This.

It's just trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip, all it will do is destroy many churches.

This too.

I'm glad I don't live in Quebec, though I don't doubt that some shortsighted moron here in Canada's kilt (hey, if they always have to be joked on for being "America's hat"...) will take this as a signal to try to do the same thing here. Here's hoping in advance that they fail, and hard.

 

[Tigger45]

The vast majority of churches eclipse their tax exmptions in charitable goods and services both locally and globally. Siphoning those monies into the leaky bucket of an inept bureaucracy will only hurt those that need those charities the most.

 

[Sketcher]

It's just trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip, all it will do is destroy many churches.

Agreed. In the US at least, it's the megachurches that are used as reasons to collect taxes from churches, not the millions of smaller ones. But it's the smaller ones that won't survive the taxation, and the megachurches that will. If the megachurches are the problem, why drive more people to them?

 

[dzheremi]

The vast majority of churches eclipse their tax exmptions in charitable goods and services both locally and globally. Siphoning those monies into the leaky bucket of an inept bureaucracy will only hurt those that need those charities the most.

Exactly. I've never been to a church that did not make clear the humanitarian uses of its donations (and I was raised Presbyterian, briefly attended a Baptist church, converted to Catholicism in my 20s and to Orthodoxy in my 30s, so I've been pretty much everywhere). I am aware that such churches do exist, and if we are going to tax churches, those are the ones which should be taxed so at to be forced into transparency and that any abuse of funds (using them for other than their explicitly-stated purposes) can be uncovered, and those behind said abuses be prosecuted for religious fraud (which is a crime in the United States; I'm not sure about Canada).


Taxing all of them regardless of what good they do just seems like the typical government 'square peg, round hole' approach to things, so that somebody somewhere doesn't have to actually do their job and investigate whether or not it is actually a good idea to tax any particular church, relative to whatever it is they do for their surrounding community. To tax all churches just greatly weakens or sometimes eliminates their ability to continue doing good work in their communities.

When I was in upstate NY (Rochester area, which has some pretty rough neighborhoods) for a stay in the monastery of St. Shenouda the Archimandrite some years ago, the priest and his deacon took me to a small chapel that was in an inner city neighborhood (the monastery itself was outside the city limits in an area whose name escapes me), where we held the day's liturgy. I was very surprised to see, upon entering and exiting the chapel, the local homeless people would come up to abouna and greet him as though they were members of the congregation (even though they did not attend the liturgy itself), and some hugged him, etc. I asked his deacon what that was about, and he said that in the area they also distribute food to the poor and the homeless on certain days of the week, so abouna is well known and respected by all the people, and the Coptic community and the general community of that neighborhood (which was not full of Coptic people) got along very well. I can only imagine that if the land attached to the monastery (however they are defining 'space not used explicitly for worship') were taxed, they would have to severely reduce or eliminate such programs. And then the people, who live in a bit of a 'food desert' already and/or otherwise cannot afford food on a regular basis, would go hungry...all so that the government could say churches aren't getting a 'special exemption', I guess? Seems like a horrible idea, but what else can you expect from bureaucrats who are isolated from the reality on the ground that their decisions can greatly affect.

 

[CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN]

So long as they are willing to tax ALL nonprofits I have NO problem with it whatsoever.

Churches profit very well. I think that's the problem.

 

[Hank77]

It a municipal tax, not an income tax, and it's not on all churches neither is it on the whole church property in some cases.

"The indication is there's not an exemption for the church as a whole, there's only an exemption for those areas used for public worship and things directly related to it," said Coppetiers.


As a result, many churches in Montreal that host community groups, such as food banks, or Girl Guides or Boy Scouts, are facing mounting tax bills.
No more religious exemptions: Montreal is taxing churches

I can't imagine why they would want to tax an area used as a food bank either.

 

[mkgal1]

I can't imagine why they would want to tax an area used as a food bank either.

I wondered the same thing. I wonder if the scouts and food banks *rented* the facility for their events? If that's the case - then it just became a civic event center for that period of time.

But, as I read the article, it only applies to church *buildings* (as Hank posted - a municipal tax of some kind - probably property tax) that are vacant and void of pastors/ministry leadership.

 

[mkgal1]

It IS property tax that's being imposed (but ONLY if left vacant or void of worship services). It's a good thing for the community (IMO). I didn't even realize churches are exempt from paying property tax. From this linked article:

More than a decade ago, the city of Stafford, Texas was in the news because it had so many churches — therefore so many buildings that didn’t pay taxes — that city officials couldn’t figure out how to pay for basic communal needs like schools and roads and police officers. - Montreal is Taxing Churches for Sensible Reasons; Naturally, Ministers Are Freaking Out

 

[dzheremi]

It IS property tax that's being imposed (but ONLY if left vacant or void of worship services). It's a good thing for the community (IMO). I didn't even realize churches are exempt from paying property tax. From this linked article:

Here is my reply to that, just to kinda get people thinking in other terms (not looking to fight; I think it is sensible to tax unused property, religious or not, but...):

When I first began attending St. Bishoy Coptic Orthodox Church in NM, it was in a private home where the worshipers had met for the past 15+ years while saving up money to get a church building/space of their own. They finally did it about mid-way into my four years there, but remain technically a "Community", which in Diocesan terms means a group that has not yet grown to the size of warranting its own full-time priest (when I joined it was 6 families, then one moved away, other individuals came, etc.; the Coptic community proper in Albuquerque was maybe 60 people, from what I could tell when they would all show up when HG Bishop Youssef would visit us). So we instead borrowed the two priests from the next nearest full-fledged Coptic Orthodox Church (~150 families), St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church of Scottsdale, AZ, on alternate weekends. This means we could only have liturgy at most twice a month, because the rest of the time we didn't have a priest. Sometimes we'd only have liturgy once a month because Father was sick, or had a family issue (in the COC, we have married clergy), or whatever other reason.

Would a situation like this warrant taxing the community for leaving its church (paid for in full for through donations by its members, who also built by hand its iconostasis, altar, paid for its icons, etc.) empty for half of the month due to circumstances beyond their control? We also donated to the various Diocesan-level programs, like HOPE (Helping Other People Excel; I think it was job training and education), various calls related to medical problems suffered by this or that person that require paying high bills (something Canadians I guess can't relate to, but it can definitely ruin a person), etc. These were all spelled out in the Diocese's quarterly newsletter, which everyone received in the mail, as we were part of the Diocese...just a very small part.

In cases like this, I don't see the logic in saying "Your church isn't active enough, therefore you must pay us XYZ." That would kill the community, which is trying to grow and trying to become a full-fledged church, and growing by receiving converts, albeit slowly; I think placement is a problem, as nobody actually wants to live in Albuquerque or its environs...New Mexico infamously and very sadly trades places with Mississippi every few years for the poorest state in the nation by many metrics, but then shouldn't that encourage churches to provide help, as the people in my example are already trying to do? It just seems crazy to me to look at a situation like this and say "You're not active enough, so we're going to punish you", basically. Would the Quebec government tax the widow with her two mites because she couldn't regularly return after having already given everything she had?

 

[High Fidelity]

No place of worship that accepts donations should be tax free.

Much less the charlatans on TV fleecing gullible people with snake oil in their $10,000 suits.

Taxing churches would generate billions.

 

[rambot]

Well I'd our denomination has its own relief work organization, churches will be able to exempt their tax donations correct?

 

[variant]

The vast majority of churches eclipse their tax exmptions in charitable goods and services both locally and globally. Siphoning those monies into the leaky bucket of an inept bureaucracy will only hurt those that need those charities the most.

If that's the case then just leave the tax deductability of charitable giving in and the problem is solved from that perspective.

 

[mkgal1]

Here is my reply to that, just to kinda get people thinking in other terms (not looking to fight; I think it is sensible to tax unused property, religious or not, but...):

This means we could only have liturgy at most twice a month, because the rest of the time we didn't have a priest. Sometimes we'd only have liturgy once a month because Father was sick, or had a family issue (in the COC, we have married clergy), or whatever other reason.

I don't think that qualifies as "vacant". Your church was using the property each month. I think this new property taxation might have to do with (maybe even specifically designed for) circumstances like this:

Quoting CBC News article:

The historic La Patrie building, located at 182 Ste-Catherine St. East, belongs to the Church of Scientology.(Radio-Canada)

The Church of Scientology could have its Montreal building seized and sold by the city.​

Radio-Canada has discovered that the Church owes about $90,000 in back taxes.

The church has owned the La Patrie building, which is a historic building on Ste-Catherine Street in downtown Montreal's Latin Quarter, since 2007.

The building, which was built in 1905 to house the newspaper La Patrie, is now abandoned. Church members had plans to renovate it, but no work has been carried out yet.

Last week, city officials sent the Church of Scientology a legal notice requesting it pay off debts from 2015 totalling $39,855. According to city spokesman,Gonzalo Nunez, if the amount is not paid off in the next few months, the building will be sold at auction in November.

The Church has paid $14,000 since receiving the notice.

According to municipal documents obtained by Radio-Canada, the Church of Scientology has not paid this year's property taxes either – $62,350 was due March 1.

That means that the Church owes just more than $88,000 to the City of Montreal. ~
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mont...oedoTvLTe42z5rb_dex1yWxyUMJN8Hr15qpgTTcmVGkgc

From what I've read, the church of Scientology owns a LOT of property across the world that sits vacant. I just wonder if they're exploiting the exemption of prop taxes and using it as a great investment (these properties gain a lot of value). If a "church" is going to run like an investment firm - then they should be held to the same standards as investment firms (and have to pay property tax).​

 

[mkgal1]

@jayem why is my post funny to you?

 

[W2L]

So long as they are willing to tax ALL nonprofits I have NO problem with it whatsoever.

Good point.