
Satanic Temple Wins IRS Recognition as an Official House of Worship - askytb
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-26/the-satanic-temple-gets-irs-nod-as-official-house-of-worship
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JohnFen
Good!

I don't agree with giving churches tax-exempt status just for being churches
(I do agree with giving nonprofits tax-exempt status), but if that's the
policy then I'm glad to see it's being applied across-the-board.

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dragonwriter
> I don't agree with giving churches tax-exempt status just for being churches
> (I do agree with giving nonprofits tax-exempt status)

Tax exempt churches are a subset of tax exempt nonprofits.

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JohnFen
Yes, I know, and it is probably hair-splitting in practice. I just disagree
with there being a special category for religious organizations. I think
nonprofit status alone is sufficient to cover everyone.

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dragonwriter
> I think nonprofit status alone is sufficient to cover everyone.

There's a whole bunch of major categories of tax exempt non-profit status with
different detailed rules, and within the main categories (e.g., charities)
there are often minor categories with different variations on the rules.

If you have concrete, disagreements with the rules (including better, simpler
alternatives that require fewer distinctions), great.

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JohnFen
(Edited for clarity)

I don't. My attitude is more of a political/philosphical one than a policy
one.

My take on the First Amendment differs a bit from the government's. I
interpret "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" as incompatible with making an IRS
category about them. This is because it requires the government to decide what
does and does not count as a religion -- which seems to be, at least in
spirit, what the first amendment says should not be done.

That said, this is not really something that I get terribly upset about. In
practice, I don't think a great deal of injustice results (meaning that if I'm
going to make a big stink about injustice, there are much bigger fish to fry.)

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workingpatrick
Because Bloomberg does not like noscript or my enterprise shared IP:
[https://outline.com/Pa85w4](https://outline.com/Pa85w4)

