Anabaptism and the 1st Amendment

[Ken]

It's an odd view that not taking taxes from people is a "subsidy", particularly when compared to public schools who also don't pay any taxes, and also get to enjoy feasting the public trough, which most private schools don't do.

Nonsense.

If you have a small rural Mennonite school somewhere in your town or in a rural area, that school receives police protection, fire protection, has roads maintained, water service, electrical service, sewage service and a variety of other public services that every neighboring property pays for through property taxes but that your school is exempt from paying. Yes you probably still pay your water and electric bill, but those services are still often heavily subsidized in that rate payers are not paying the full cost of building out the wires and pipes and so forth.

So yes, every school and every church that is tax exempt is relying on the taxes of its neighbors to provide all of those services.

Let's go over your line items.

#1. Police protection - we don't have "police protection" here other than the county sheriff, who generally takes a few days to arrive for lower priority calls.

#2 - Fire protection - fire protection comes from a volunteer fire department. In some areas, almost all of the volunteer firefighters are Mennonites. I went to a firehouse fund raiser last week and nearly everybody there was Mennonite, both fundraisers and diners.

#3 - Water service & sewage service - we have to dig our own wells and septic tanks and maintain themselves.

#4 - Electrical service - we pay the power company, it is not cheap to get hooked up and then there is a power bill due every month.

Property taxes don't pay for these things, other than county sheriff by a very small degree. County sheriffs in rural counties here are mostly funded by state and federal grants because the state wants to see well-resourced sheriff's offices.

Ken, I really have to question your knowledge of American civics if you think electrical service is provided by property taxes. It's not. Water & sewer are also something ratepayers pay - the village here recently raised rates significantly to pay for improvements. Water users are paying those costs, not property taxes which have remained stable and are hard to raise.

Every jurisdiction is different. If it is no big deal then I'm sure you would have no objection to eliminating the tax exemptions for private schools and churches? And it isn't just property tax, it is income tax as well. And we aren't just talking about tiny rural one-room Menno schools but huge suburban private schools and universities as well as huge suburban and urban churches that have multi-million properties. Every property that is exempted from the tax rolls means the rest pay slightly more.

Electrical service and other infrastructure has been subsidized by the Federal government for over 100 years from the time of the rural electrification co-ops in the New Deal to today with the infrastructure spending in the current budget. This is paid for by tax dollars which churches and private schools are exempt from. There would be large swaths of rural America without much in the way of electrical service were there no government subsidies. Yes, a tiny Menno school would likely not owe any income tax if it was not tax exempt. But large institutions like Liberty University or Notre Dame or Harvard most certainly would owe hundreds of millions based on their revenues and earnings from their endowments and donations.

[ohio jones]

Show me any new school that is built without additional taxes. And show me any new school that is build without massive civil infrastructure costs, but one that simply uses existing infrastructure.

So here is a performing arts center and school district office building, opening in a month or so, that was built on a "read my lips" basis with no new taxes and no new infrastructure. Actually the infrastructure was put in place with the building on the right, which did have some additional taxes, so I suppose it doesn't count entirely. But such things do happen once in a while, under the right circumstances.

[Josh]

Every jurisdiction is different. If it is no big deal then I'm sure you would have no objection to eliminating the tax exemptions for private schools and churches?

The government thinks education is important and doesn't want to levy property taxes on schools. How would one assess school buildings? They don't really have commercial use or value. Private schools would end up paying expensive taxes if property values in the area go up, which means tuition would go up, which would mean they can only serve wealthy families. That doesn't serve the public purpose at all.

And it isn't just property tax, it is income tax as well. And we aren't just talking about tiny rural one-room Menno schools but huge suburban private schools and universities as well as huge suburban and urban churches that have multi-million properties. Every property that is exempted from the tax rolls means the rest pay slightly more.

I'm not sure what you're stabbing at here. Every parent who enrols their children in private school already pays the same income and property taxes other families do. They then pay tuition with their after-tax dollars. The teachers at the private school, in turn, have to pay income taxes on their salaries. The only "tax break" here is the property tax itself, and even that is not entirely tax-free - housing provided to teachers, for example, pays normal residential or rental type property taxes.

Electrical service and other infrastructure has been subsidized by the Federal government for over 100 years from the time of the rural electrification co-ops in the New Deal to today with the infrastructure spending in the current budget. This is paid for by tax dollars which churches and private schools are exempt from.

That is utterly ridiculous. Existing electrical infrastructure is paid for by utility bills. Utilities are taxpayers where I live. Places that host a power plant often enjoy large property taxes assessed on the plant.

But since you seem obsessed with the idea that "property taxes pay for electricity", I'll go ahead and cite Amish schools that don't use electricity. There you go. No government funds used whatsoever. Most Amish schools were purchased from a public school board when they shut down one room schoolhouses, so the Amish schools actually put money in the public school coffers that otherwise would have been an undesirable building for sale.

There would be large swaths of rural America without much in the way of electrical service were there no government subsidies. Yes, a tiny Menno school would likely not owe any income tax if it was not tax exempt.

I don't agree with that. There are large swaths of rural America who only get high-speed Internet because of private development of it. (Government-subsidised development gave things like 3Mbit DSL or dial-up which is utterly useless today.) In examples in Mennonite communities I am aware of like the telecom my father in law was a cofounder of, they developed telecoms infrastructure entirely without any government subsidy. Much of their infrastructure is in locations with no electrical service and it is very very expensive to run new electrical lines to the locations. (Contrary to your belief, the government does not subsidise running electrical lines.) So they are using their own solar equipment in places because that's cheaper.

I looked at buying some land and so did someone else at church where there was no electrical line on the street. The cost was absurd to get it run, in the $100k range to go just a mile or two. No government subsidy there. At my old house we had a workshop and wanted three-phase power. The utility quoted around $100k-$300k to run that since there wasn't 3-phase on our road. No subsidy there either.

But large institutions like Liberty University or Notre Dame or Harvard most certainly would owe hundreds of millions based on their revenues and earnings from their endowments and donations.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Nonprofits are nonprofits. We don't expect people to pay income tax on nonprofit undertakings. Notre Dame isn't a for-profit business with owners who expect to be getting paid dividends.

Your notion that we owe everything to the government seems absurd, including the idea we owe water, sewer, electricity, and are somehow "stealing" from the government to have a nonprofit religious school. You seem to believe the government should control what our schools do because we have electrical lines run to them. Perhaps the Amish were right about this.

[Ken]

Every jurisdiction is different. If it is no big deal then I'm sure you would have no objection to eliminating the tax exemptions for private schools and churches?

The government thinks education is important and doesn't want to levy property taxes on schools. How would one assess school buildings? They don't really have commercial use or value. Private schools would end up paying expensive taxes if property values in the area go up, which means tuition would go up, which would mean they can only serve wealthy families. That doesn't serve the public purpose at all.

And it isn't just property tax, it is income tax as well. And we aren't just talking about tiny rural one-room Menno schools but huge suburban private schools and universities as well as huge suburban and urban churches that have multi-million properties. Every property that is exempted from the tax rolls means the rest pay slightly more.

I'm not sure what you're stabbing at here. Every parent who enrols their children in private school already pays the same income and property taxes other families do. They then pay tuition with their after-tax dollars. The teachers at the private school, in turn, have to pay income taxes on their salaries. The only "tax break" here is the property tax itself, and even that is not entirely tax-free - housing provided to teachers, for example, pays normal residential or rental type property taxes.

Electrical service and other infrastructure has been subsidized by the Federal government for over 100 years from the time of the rural electrification co-ops in the New Deal to today with the infrastructure spending in the current budget. This is paid for by tax dollars which churches and private schools are exempt from.

That is utterly ridiculous. Existing electrical infrastructure is paid for by utility bills. Utilities are taxpayers where I live. Places that host a power plant often enjoy large property taxes assessed on the plant.

But since you seem obsessed with the idea that "property taxes pay for electricity", I'll go ahead and cite Amish schools that don't use electricity. There you go. No government funds used whatsoever. Most Amish schools were purchased from a public school board when they shut down one room schoolhouses, so the Amish schools actually put money in the public school coffers that otherwise would have been an undesirable building for sale.

There would be large swaths of rural America without much in the way of electrical service were there no government subsidies. Yes, a tiny Menno school would likely not owe any income tax if it was not tax exempt.

I don't agree with that. There are large swaths of rural America who only get high-speed Internet because of private development of it. (Government-subsidised development gave things like 3Mbit DSL or dial-up which is utterly useless today.) In examples in Mennonite communities I am aware of like the telecom my father in law was a cofounder of, they developed telecoms infrastructure entirely without any government subsidy. Much of their infrastructure is in locations with no electrical service and it is very very expensive to run new electrical lines to the locations. (Contrary to your belief, the government does not subsidise running electrical lines.) So they are using their own solar equipment in places because that's cheaper.

I looked at buying some land and so did someone else at church where there was no electrical line on the street. The cost was absurd to get it run, in the $100k range to go just a mile or two. No government subsidy there. At my old house we had a workshop and wanted three-phase power. The utility quoted around $100k-$300k to run that since there wasn't 3-phase on our road. No subsidy there either.

But large institutions like Liberty University or Notre Dame or Harvard most certainly would owe hundreds of millions based on their revenues and earnings from their endowments and donations.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Nonprofits are nonprofits. We don't expect people to pay income tax on nonprofit undertakings. Notre Dame isn't a for-profit business with owners who expect to be getting paid dividends.

Your notion that we owe everything to the government seems absurd, including the idea we owe water, sewer, electricity, and are somehow "stealing" from the government to have a nonprofit religious school. You seem to believe the government should control what our schools do because we have electrical lines run to them. Perhaps the Amish were right about this.

You are missing my point.

I'm not arguing that we shouldn't support education in this country BOTH public and private.

I am simply pointing out that all education in this country gets subsidies in some form. Public schools are obviously subsidized directly through tax dollars. No one is arguing this isn't the case. We collect tax dollars and spend them on public education. That is what every country does.

But private schools, churches, and every other form of non-profit also receives indirect subsidies in the form of tax exemptions. This is also completely uncontroversial. If you think that is not the case, imagine how loud private schools, churches, and non-profits would scream if they were to lose their tax-exempt status. It would be deafening. Again, I'm not arguing that we shouldn't do this. For generations we have exempted non-profits from taxation because we believe they serve a public good. I have no argument with this.

But let's take Notre Dame for example. Which is a wealthy institution but not in the same league as Harvard or Stanford.

Notre Dame has an endowment of $20 Billion on which they earned investment profits of $7 billion last year.
Notre Dame gets over 20,000 applications per year for which they charge $75 each whether you are accepted or rejected (and over 90% are rejected). That is $1.5 million right there.
Notre Dame's football program earns about $150 million per year on TV revenues, ticket sales, and other merchandise branding and nets something like $80 million/year in profit off football
Notre Dame's head football coaches and basketball coaches collectively earn tens of millions of dollars
Notre Dame's president John I Jenkins (a Jesuit priest no less) earns over $1 million a year and there are many many administrators, deans, and other big wigs at Notre Dame who earn high 6-figure salaries.
Notre Dame brings in hundreds of millions of dollars per year in donations from estates, individuals, and organizations
Notre Dame brings in over $200 million a year in research funding of which the university administration skims off something like 1/3 off the top for "overhead"

Every bit of which is tax-free except for the salaries. And much of that is structured in ways to avoid taxes through fringe benefits.

That is a WHOLE LOT OF PROFETTING for a non-profit institution.

[Josh]

Can we discuss Mennonite private schools not Norte Dame?

You asserted we rely on free water sewer and electric subsidized by taxes. I pointed out you were completely wrong.

[temporal1]

Don’t overlook taxes on LACK of consumption! (you thot cutting back, being thrifty would pay?!)
nope. you will pay more for less. (aren’t we used to it by now??)

“STATES THAT CHARGE EXTRA FEES TO OWN AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE”
https://www.myev.com/research/interesti ... ic-vehicle

.. MAKING UP FOR LOST REVENUE
Illinois now joins 17 other states that charge extra annual fees to EV owners.
Perhaps ironically, these include states like California and Colorado that otherwise grant EV buyers substantial financial incentives to help spur sales for the sake of reducing tailpipe emissions. Curiously, it also includes a number of states in which few EVs are sold in the first place.

Could there be a better way to recover lost gas tax revenue that might not dissuade motorists from going electric?
One alternative might be to assess higher registration fees based upon a vehicle’s curb weight.
Heavier vehicles – especially heavy-duty pickups, buses, commercial vehicles, and big-rig trucks – tend to cause more damage to roads and bridges than do lighter modes of transport. Given the lobbying power of the businesses that would be affected, however, we wouldn’t bet on that happening anytime soon.

Another idea some states have been considering is to assess a “use tax” that’s based upon the number of miles a vehicle is driven.
One way to determine that would be via data collected by a small transponder that plugs into a car’s diagnostic (OBD II) port.
This would be similar to those used by auto insurance companies to reward motorists who drive for only short distances and maintain mannerly driving habits. Privacy and fairness issues (rural drivers who drive more miles than their urban counterparts, though at more fuel-efficient higher speeds, would essentially be penalized) have largely prevented such programs from being implemented. ..

[Ken]

Can we discuss Mennonite private schools not Norte Dame?

You asserted we rely on free water sewer and electric subsidized by taxes. I pointed out you were completely wrong.

I was speaking about private schools in general not whatever tiny rural Menno school you have in mind. This discussion subthread started about a Baptist woman in Kansas and whether public school teachers should have a religious right to defy the directives of their school districts. We were never discussing small Menno schools.

And I did not claim that schools get free water and electricity. What I actually said was that the water, sewer, highway, and electrical infrastructure in many if not most all communities has been subsidized by tax dollars over many decades. Some of those costs are recouped by rate payers. But not all. Most rural areas would have little in the way of public infrastructure if they were forced to pay for it entirely themselves because they could not afford it. The US government spends tens of billions per year on subsidies for energy production and development of things like the electrical grid in rural areas. You might like to pretend that small Menno institutions exist outside of society but they do not. They rely on the same public services as everyone else.

It is a simple fact that religious schools and churches as well as every other type of non profit from hospitals to charities receive public subsidies in the form of both property tax and income tax exemptions. To the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars per year. This is utterly uncontroversial. No one argues otherwise. And the cost of those subsidizes are born by higher tax rates for everyone else.

[Josh]

You keep saying us rural people get subsidies for sewer and water.

I have yet to get a check for my septic system or well. I have to pay the county for permits for having a septic system and then pay for a private contract to service and maintain it and certify my permit.

You keep saying rural areas are “subsidised”. Now could you explain how we are getting subsidies for water and sewer?

Highways for rural areas are paid for with local dollars as well.

[Ken]

You keep saying us rural people get subsidies for sewer and water.

I have yet to get a check for my septic system or well. I have to pay the county for permits for having a septic system and then pay for a private contract to service and maintain it and certify my permit.

You keep saying rural areas are “subsidised”. Now could you explain how we are getting subsidies for water and sewer?

Highways for rural areas are paid for with local dollars as well.

You live in Ohio. It took me all of 10 seconds to discover that the state of Ohio subsidizes rural water systems to the tune of $250 million per year: https://www.ohioruralwater.org/www-grant-program.html

Ohio also has similar programs the subsidize the investment and repair of rural sewage systems: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2021/07/ ... ed-grants/

And those are just state subsidizes. The Federal government has parallel programs as well.

[Josh]

I have yet to receive any money for my water system.

That $250M comes out of taxes myself and other people pay. Your argument that my water and septic system is paid off with public funds continues to be absurd. I pay property taxes on my property - including paying taxes for the value of the improvements of the well and septic.