The Church and the Tax Law: Keeping Church and State Separate

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-53
Author(s):  
Mary Ann Hofmann
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Establishment Clause ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Tax Law ◽  
Tax Benefits ◽  
Financial Transactions ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACT In a democracy characterized by the separation of church and state, what role does the federal government play in regulating the activities and the financial transactions of churches and other religious nonprofit organizations? What are the current federal requirements regarding tax exemption for churches, tax deductibility of donations to churches, and political activity by churches, and are these requirements justified? Rather than interfering with the free exercise of religion, does the federal government actually come closer to violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment by providing inappropriate tax benefits to churches and clergy? This paper discusses tax laws and federal court decisions relating to these and other issues.

Pandangan Eklesiologi Calvin mengenai Politik Praktis dalam Pelayanan Gereja

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfons Renaldo Tampenawas
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
State Politics ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church ◽  
What Matters

Abstract: This article discusses the inclusion of Calvin’s exclusion of politics in practical churchservice of the Calvin Chruch and state (politicos) as two things that the Lord allows for attending tolife in the world, but both church and state (politics) both have different duties and responsibilitieswhile also helping one another. There’s basically no supremarcy between the two. But what matters iswhen politics blends with service in the church, in another sense the church becomes the vehicle forpolitics. This is what they call a practical political activity. Where both personal and politicalinterests have made the church a tool for sustaining support. This is made the church lose its identityas salt and the light of the world.Keywords: church; ecclesiology; ecclesiology of Calvin; practical politicsAbstrak: Artikel ini membahas mengenai pandangan Eklesiologi Calvin Mengenai Politik Praktisdalam pelayanan Gereja. Dalam Eklesiologi Calvin gereja maupun negara (politik) merupakan duahal yang diijinkan Tuhan untuk hadir dalam kehidupan di dunia, akan tetapi baik gereja maupunnegara (politik) keduanya memiliki tugas dan tanggung jawab yang berbeda walaupun juga salingmenolong satu dengan yang lain. Pada dasarnya tidak ada supremasi antara keduanya. Namun yangmenjadi persoalan ketika politik bercampur aduk dengan pelayanan di dalam gereja, dalam arti yanglain gereja menjadi kendaraan bagi politik. Inilah yang dinamakan dengan kegiatan politik praktis,dimana kepentingan pribadi maupun kelompok partai politik menjadikan gereja sebagai alat untukmencari dukungan. Hal ini membuat gereja kehilangan jati diri/identitas sebagai garam dan terangdunia.Kata kunci: eklesiologi; eklesiologi Calvin; gereja; politik praktis

Perry and Windsor

2021 ◽  
pp. 147-155
Author(s):  
Michael J. Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Court System ◽  
Heterosexual Couples ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
The Social ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
Tax Benefits

A 2010 federal trial in California, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, ruled that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional and showed that the expert witnesses brought in to testify against marriage equality were either unconvincing or entirely lacking in credibility. Perry was a triumph for the social science consensus supporting gay rights. Moving up the federal court system at the same time was Edith Windsor’s challenge to DOMA, which prevented the federal government from recognizing Windsor’s marriage to Thea Spyer, and therefore prevented Windsor from enjoying the estate tax benefits that married heterosexual couples enjoy. The 2013 U.S. v. Windsor decision overturned a key provision of DOMA, the federal ban on recognizing same-sex marriages and opened the door to legal challenges to every state ban on same-sex marriage.

From Sham to Reality: Should a Wrong Be Taxed as a Right?

2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-150
Author(s):  
Chris Sprysak
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Tax Law ◽  
Legal Effect ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Tax Benefits ◽  
Court Of Appeal ◽  
As If

How should a sham be treated for tax purposes? In 1524994 Ontario Ltd. v. M.N.R., the Federal Court of Appeal treated a sham as if it reflected the true agreement between the parties in order to uphold a GST assessment. The result was inconsistent with existing jurisprudence and undesirable. Courts should apply the law to the true facts only, and should not overlook or give effect to a sham in order to achieve the desired juridical consequences. The author reviews the origins and development of the sham doctrine and introduces a three-part typology of sham cases. In situations like 1524994 Ontario Ltd. v. M.N.R., the sham is intended to obtain non-tax benefits from a third-party victim, but in the process triggers unintended tax consequences, which are the subject of litigation. Although the traditional approach in Continental Bank Leasing Corp. v. M.N.R. (under which recharacterization is permissible only if the label attached to a transaction does not reflect its actual legal effect) could result in non-payment of taxes and retention of improperly obtained benefits, the author concludes that this result would be preferable to that of the Federal Court of Appeal judgment. Treating a sham as real, and taxing a wrong as a right (1) will not deter parties from creating shams to obtain non-tax benefits, (2) will violate longstanding principles that tax law be applied with neutrality and equity and without considering its effects, and (3) will increase uncertainty and inconsistency in the case law.

Setting the Stage

2019 ◽  
pp. 58-100
Author(s):  
Steven K. Green
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Establishment Clause ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Jehovah’S Witnesses ◽  
Jehovah's Witnesses ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
The Church

This chapter examines the legal controversies and cases that provided the background for the modern Court’s early church–state cases. It pays particular attention to the activities and litigation involving Jehovah’s Witnesses—canvassing and flag-salute controversies—and how those cases impacted the justices’ thinking about church and state. Although representing distinct constitutional issues, the Witnesses’ free exercise and free speech claims laid the groundwork for the Court’s Establishment Clause decisions. The chapter then examines Protestant–Catholic relations during the war years and the church–state controversies that arose in its immediate aftermath. These events set the stage for the Court’s holdings in Everson and McCollum.

Church and State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. DeJonge
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church

Chapter 3’s discussion of kingdoms and orders in the context of political life leads naturally into the topic of this chapter: the church, the state, and their relationship. The present chapter locates the state (or, better, political authority in general) in relationship to Chapter 3’s categories by presenting it as one of the orders by which God’s structures the world. It is an important actor in the temporal kingdom, where God has ordained it to preserve the world through law. The church in its essence is an agent of the spiritual kingdom, bearing God’s redemptive word to the world. The themes of preservation and redemption, the kingdoms, and the orders find many of their concrete expressions in themes of the church, the state, and their relationship.

Grace and Nation: Coleridge's On the Constitution of Church and State

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-208
Author(s):  
Alan Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Classic Work ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
National Life ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACTUnderstanding Coleridge's classic work On the Constitution of Church and State requires paying close attention to the system of distinctions and relations he sets up between the state, the ‘national church’, and the ‘Christian church’. The intelligibility of these relations depends finally on Coleridge's Trinitarianism, his doctrine of ‘divine ideas’, and the subtle analogy he draws between the Church of England as both an ‘established’ church of the nation and as a Christian church and the distinction and union of divinity and humanity in Christ. Church and State opens up, in these ‘saving’ distinctions and connections, important considerations for the integrity and role of the Christian church within a religiously plural national life.

Separating the Church from State: The Kenyan High Court's Decision in Jesse Kamau and 25 Others v Attorney General (Judgment of 24 May 2010)

2011 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 314-319
Author(s):  
Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
High Court ◽  
Personal Status ◽  
The Church ◽  
Secular State

AbstractSection 66 of the 1963 Kenyan Constitution established the Kadhi's courts with the jurisdiction to determine “questions of Muslim law relating to personal status, marriage, divorce or inheritance in proceedings in which all the parties profess the Muslim religion”. 26 Christians petitioned the High Court and argued that section 66 was unconstitutional because it, inter alia, violated the principle of separation of Church and state. The court found in their favour and held that Kenya is a secular state, that section 66 violated the doctrine of separation of state and Church, and that it was discriminatory and contrary to section 82 of the constitution which prohibits discrimination. This note gives the facts of the case, the issues before the court and the court's decision. It also analyses the court's decision.

Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Walker
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Liturgical Music ◽  
International Exhibitions ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
Epistemological Position ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Opera Houses ◽  
The Church

This book is the first comprehensive study that reevaluates music’s role in the relationship between the French state and the Catholic Church at the end of the nineteenth century. As the divide between Church and State widened on the political stage, more and more composers began writing religious—even liturgical—music for performance in decidedly secular venues, including popular cabaret theaters, prestigious opera houses, and international exhibitions: a trend that coincided with Pope Leo XIII’s Ralliement politics that encouraged conservative Catholics to “rally” with the Republican government. But the idea of a musical Ralliement has largely gone unquestioned by historians and musicologists alike who have long accepted a somewhat simplistic epistemological position that emphasizes a sharp division between the Church and the “secular” Republic during this period. Drawing on extensive archival research, critical reception studies, and musical analysis, this book reveals how composers and critics from often opposing ideological factions undermined the secular/sacred binary. From the opera house and niche puppet theaters to Parisian parish churches and Montmartre’s famed cabarets, composers and critics from opposing ideological factions used music in their effort to craft a brand of Frenchness that was built on the dual foundations of secular Republicanism and the heritage of the French Catholic Church.

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