Proposal to repeal tax-exemptions for religious institutions

33055

Mon, Jun 29 2015, 2:32 pm

This type of proposal has been out there decades. I remember as a girl reading this during the Lindsey Administration. 20% of NYC was owned by religious orgs. The Chrysler Building is owned by the Catholic Church and pays no taxes.* Much of downtown is owned by Trinity Church. I think they are the biggest landholder out there.

The tax breaks can be the main driving force when giving and the charitable benefits secondary. The laws are so convoluted you can get more than you give in tax benefits.

*The church owns a remainder interest in a 200 year ground lease making the current owner exempt from paying property taxes yet they collect an equivalent amount from their tenants.

Dolly Welsh

Mon, Jun 29 2015, 3:29 pm

I agree with Magenta Yenta that this isn't going to happen. But the timing of the piece, this exact week, may be to plant in people's heads that tax exempting religious orgs isn't so sacred and untouchable and unthinkable.

That softens the way to selective denial of tax exemption.

Meaning, you would leave it piously in place across the board, just removing it once case at a time, selectively, from people you don't like. Who discriminate in ways you don't like. Ideological cleansing of the public square. Selectively.

It softens the subject up. It's battle space preparation.

Some churches are left and some are right. The ones that are lefty will be fine, and the ones that are righty will not be fine.

As for us Orthodox Jews, no Christian will bother us.

But lefty Jews might very well bother us.

We are pro-Israel and we do indeed have enemies.

And the whole open Orthodoxy movement, even though it is pro-Israel, has another complaint against us: it is interested in gender roles and in the ordination of women.

I hope open Orthodoxy is small. But I don't know.

It might go after anybody who was to the right of them.

I don't know that they will do that; it's just a thought, and maybe not a very nice thought.

The vulnerability is real however.

It's always like that when you tighten things: it all starts to become "who do you know, or who have you paid off".

Someone once said to me, "don't tell Soviet exiles schooling and medicine were free there. You had to bribe the teacher not to be mean to your kid, and you had to bribe the doctor to treat your illness. Free on paper, not free in reality."