Wednesday, November 02, 2016

The Tax Break

The Journal did a confusing editorial this morning on the issue of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe disciplining a priest for telling his flock to essentially vote against Hillary because she is pro choice.  I think the Journal tried to say it was indicating a slight change in the hierarchy's stand on abortion.  But maybe not.

The real issue here  is whether the Santa Fe County Assessor will now charge property tax against this priest's church or if the IRS will declare them in violation of non profit status.  They should.  I have always felt the exemption to property tax for people with gods has been a little suspect.  Yes, the church does some good charitable deeds, but does that forgive them for paying taxes to maintain the infrastructure that  supports their institutions?  Nah.

Dream on if you think any pol would ever take this one on.  When I was Mayor I was upset with some mega churches for taking business away from the Convention Center.  It was a money maker for them.  I said so and was immediately accused of being the devil's spawn.

"There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings."
― from "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My parent's moved back to Albuquerque, but I was raised off Eubank NE as a kid in the 1970's. I visited many times since my folks moved back....its very crowded now... dont like it.
But I digress, So sanctuary cities came up, and the conversation came up that, (please correct me if Im wrong) was it your father who started a big argument about sanctuary city's by declaring Alb. one?
If I remember right the Native American population back then were very upset about it.
Was that your dad?
best wishes
Will

Jim Baca said...

when did this occur?

Jim Baca said...

it would not have been my dad Fermin.