Religious subsidies costing US taxpayers $71 billion

[Angry Floof]

A new study has found that churches in the United States are ripping off the American people for a whopping $71 billion in tax breaks.

Wait, you say! Churches do good deeds and charitable works with that money! That’s why they have tax exempt status! They deserve to be tax-free because they care for the less fortunate! Well, not quite. Secular Humanism reports a very different reality.

Religions are quick to trumpet when they do charitable work—ironically for Christians, since the Bible explicitly says not to (Mathew 6:2). But they don’t do as much charitable work as a lot of people think, and they spend a relatively small percentage of their overall revenue on such work. For instance, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS or Mormon Church), which regularly trumpets its charitable donations, gave about $1 billion to charitable causes between 1985 and 2008. That may seem like a lot until you divide it by the twenty-three-year time span and realize this church is donating only about 0.7 percent of its annual income.”

Not all churches are equal, though. Methodist churches give 29%.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I don't expect Christians to live up to their scriptures, but it really is time to render unto Caesar. The pastors' housing exemption -- how is that constitutional? And think how many of the right wing clergy rail at "special rights" for gays. Yeeesh.

 

[funinspace]

Not all churches are equal, though. Methodist churches give 29%.

Something smells fishy in Denmark…

Ok, the UMC has 32,408 (see below link) churches in the US. Just picking a lowball number, let’s say the average church budget is $100,000. That would be a total expense of $3.2 billion, and this is probably low by about a billion.
http://www.umc.org/gcfa/data-services

From the article cited in the thread (the note 3 PDF link didn’t work):

Other religions are more charitable. For instance, the United Methodist Church allocated about 29 percent of its revenues to charitable causes in 2010 (about $62 million of $214 million received).3

Most of that $62 million is part of UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief), see data from below linky.
http://www.umcor.org/ArticleDocuments/433/umcorfinancialreport2014.pdf.aspx?Embed=Y

I think that $214 million is the number out of the UMC’s general church fund along with the UMCOR funding. This ends up excluding the cost of keeping 32k churches operating, which is at least several billion dollars. Each church that is financially stable/sound is allotted an apportionment that they are supposed to provide to the mother church. Even the wealthier ones struggle to fill that apportionment at times. UMCOR also gets quite a bit of direct donation. FWIW, I did sit on a UMC finance committee many moons ago, ergo my familiarity with this.

None of this is to suggest that UMCOR doesn’t do good work, they absolutely do. I actually think it is a very good and efficient charity. Also, individual churches do help in money and time at lots of localized charitable needs. However, salaries and facility construction/maintenance eat up a very large portion of the budgets. I’d say the localized financial contribution to charities would rarely break 5% of a local UMC church’s budget (see below link). Whatever, the real percentage of money going to charity is from the UMC as a total sect organization is, I would have a hard time believing it breaks 10%.

http://www.pnwumc.org/news/how-churches-spend-their-money/

 

[Angry Floof]

Something smells fishy in Denmark…

Ok, the UMC has 32,408 (see below link) churches in the US. Just picking a lowball number, let’s say the average church budget is $100,000. That would be a total expense of $3.2 billion, and this is probably low by about a billion.
http://www.umc.org/gcfa/data-services

From the article cited in the thread (the note 3 PDF link didn’t work):

Other religions are more charitable. For instance, the United Methodist Church allocated about 29 percent of its revenues to charitable causes in 2010 (about $62 million of $214 million received).3

Most of that $62 million is part of UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief), see data from below linky.
http://www.umcor.org/ArticleDocuments/433/umcorfinancialreport2014.pdf.aspx?Embed=Y

I think that $214 million is the number out of the UMC’s general church fund along with the UMCOR funding. This ends up excluding the cost of keeping 32k churches operating, which is at least several billion dollars. Each church that is financially stable/sound is allotted an apportionment that they are supposed to provide to the mother church. Even the wealthier ones struggle to fill that apportionment at times. UMCOR also gets quite a bit of direct donation. FWIW, I did sit on a UMC finance committee many moons ago, ergo my familiarity with this.

None of this is to suggest that UMCOR doesn’t do good work, they absolutely do. I actually think it is a very good and efficient charity. Also, individual churches do help in money and time at lots of localized charitable needs. However, salaries and facility construction/maintenance eat up a very large portion of the budgets. I’d say the localized financial contribution to charities would rarely break 5% of a local UMC church’s budget (see below link). Whatever, the real percentage of money going to charity is from the UMC as a total sect organization is, I would have a hard time believing it breaks 10%.

http://www.pnwumc.org/news/how-churches-spend-their-money/

Very good point, thank you. Another example of that would be Catholics using money to support Catholic schools. Not exactly feeding the hungry.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I don't expect Christians to live up to their scriptures, but it really is time to render unto Caesar. The pastors' housing exemption -- how is that constitutional? And think how many of the right wing clergy rail at "special rights" for gays. Yeeesh.

Acts 2 and 4. God wants us to practice socialism. Vote for Bernie!