Listen to audio versions of all episodes of Right Angle and Bill Whittle Now on your podcast app. Now, including Stitcher!
iTunes Podcast | Google Podcast | | SoundCloud | RSS Feed
The IRS grants the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper nonprofit status, setting a precedent for the survival of journalism in the 21st century. Will Americans who crave fairness and accuracy make tax-free donations to the Tribune, or The New York Times? Does abandoning the pursuit of profit free journalists to tell the unvarnished truth without taint of opinion.
Bill Whittle Now with Scott Ott comes to you free five times each week thanks to our Members . See the full archive here.
5 replies on “IRS Cures News Bias: Grants Struggling Newspaper Nonprofit Status”
Just to clarify, Bill — the Salt Lake Tribune is not a conservative paper. Since the nineteenth century, they’ve viewed themselves as a counter-weight to the power of the LDS Church in Utah, and they still enjoy a bit of Mormon-bashing. They lean VERY liberal these days.
Upvote for the Arrested Development reference
Why not?
After all, the left of left is itself a religion that has no foundation in fact very much like any other religion. Since formal religions are permitted to exist tax free, shouldn’t extreme political partisans be allowed to exist tax free?
I suggest we would be way ahead if we taxed religions (including political religions) at least as highly as individuals who actually produce something that other people want to pay for. A payment that INCLUDES the taxes paid by the productive individuals. Why not the same for religions OR political parties? It would be simple equality before the law.
Churches, church bodies of any kind (synagog, mosque) are supported by the people that attend… and they continue to limp along even in this day and age of social disintegration.
They are non-profit, thanks to the IRS, and often barely meet their budgets, with no ‘profit’ to spare, maybe occasionally enough saved up for a rainy day to improve the infrastructure. Pastors, etc, are most often paid at the minimum affordable, and yet we continue to need and produce them for each generation.
That you find no benefit to religion is of course your opinion, and you are welcome to spout it, but don’t expect others to agree with you.
Since sellers of shoes, refrigerators, computers, and such have little problem even in face of high taxes, the people who buy the goods really do want buy them.
As you point out, church bodies have trouble paying their way even though they DON’T pay taxes, the people who want religion aren’t really willing to pay the price to have religion.
That you appear to think because you believe in your religion you should you should be given a special privilege to force others to give you what they produced. To put it more directly, I (who is not a believer) must be be forced to pay for your religion. I should not!
In a rational world, the situation would be called extortion and the people expecting the free lunches would be called thugs. In this world it is called charity (at the point of the government gun). It is NOT in any way charity.
Perhaps if the churches were required to pay taxes like the rest of us, only those churches who earned their way would exist. The churches who survive would be better churches AND society in general would be better off as a consequence.