N.C. church may loose tax exempt status for engaging in political activity.

[Tiberius]

On the issue of charitable works, in the UK we have a mechanism by which you can claim back tax on anything you donate to charity (so the tax you would have paid goes to the charity instead). Don't see why the same kind of thing can't be used here. All income by the church is taxed, and anything that they donate to charity or use for charitable causes receives a tax rebate.

[Ziploc Surprise]

Ok, I thought the way charities work in the U.S. is that people give to the charity and can claim it as a deduction. The charity receives the money and doesn't have to pay taxes on it. Out of that money, people working for the charity can take a portion of the donations for a salary. I assume that those with a salary from that charity have to pay taxes on this income. I think 501 c's have caps on salaries but I'm not sure on this. I don't think churches have to put caps on salaries. Neither do I think they have to cap the price of parsonages. I'm not the best at these issues but that's how I understand it (please excuse it if it's incorrect).

Things get a bit complicated when the charity invests the money and makes money. I don't know how that's taxed. Things get even more complicated when they can claim something as a church and/or parsonage that obviously isn't one of these things or an employee who may or may not actually be doing anything. For example (and I know I complain about this frequently) there's a religious "retreat" not far from my house. This "retreat" is a collection of multi million dollar houses on many acres of very expensive land. I haven't found out if it is tax exempt. I'm still trying to find out how to do this, but I assume it is. If it is exempt then this should be illegal.

I could go on about this but my point is this: Other tax exemptions, like the ones for home businesses, are being picked away by our government. Perhaps I'm wrong about this but the overwhelming tax evasion by "churches" in our country don't seem to be receiving the same treatment from our government. Perhaps I'm paranoid about this but I wonder if political clout has anything to do with this.

finally I also thought that there are a lot of bullshit charities out there. Some of whose sole purpose is to provide a salary for the person or people working for the charity and a secondary purpose may be to legally steal donations by claiming that monies were put toward certain expenses that are allowed with in the 501 c or whatever. From what I understand the Kony 2012 may have been one of these charities.

Conversly there could also exist charities that are very ethical about their money handling but are bullshit. I wonder if I could start a charity to prevent cat juggling? Here lies the question, "what constitutes a charity?"