Pastor Calls For Church Transparency With IRS Form 990
Reverend Jones has not attracted a lot of attention with his petition as far as I can tell. Religious leaders might want to take note and ponder whether the exemptions and privileges that they cling to so fiercely might be counter-productive to their mission.
Comprehensive Tax Reform Threatens Supply Of Affordable Rental Housing
But you might not be able to create the same coalition to support a spending program, which by its nature seems to compete with all other spending programs, while tax incentives seem like a free lunch. And to take the argument one step further, it may be that tax incentives, while not a free lunch, might be a bargain lunch. The assumption in the concept of tax expenditures is that if you eliminate them revenue will rise by a corresponding amount, by I am a little skeptical of that. It might be that some of those responding to tax incentives would engage in flakier behavior of less social utility than whatever the tax incentives were pushing them toward.
Follow Me
Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.