Debate: Churches ought to pay taxes

This is my response for Round 4, the final round of the debate. I’d like to thank Thett for coming out of retirement to debate this with me. Since this is my final response for the debate, I will not be introducing any new arguments to the debate. I will be mostly responding to what Thett says in R3. Religion is a social good The first point of contention that Thett brings up here is in claiming that churches will have to hire armies of lawyers to pay their taxes. This isn’t true, as the only reasons for hiring a tax attorney is for if you are in debt with taxes, issues with tax returns, facing criminal investigation, or are going to US tax court [1]. None of these would likely happen under my plan, thus this argument doesn’t work. Next Thett argues for his notion that churches will have to “change their business model” and thus the bottom line of churches will have to shut down. That churches have operated under the model that they don’t have to pay taxes and thus altering the model to having to pay taxes will make churches shut down. I find this notion unwarranted because it assumes that churches or church leaders are extremely irresponsible with money. It assumes that church leaders will literally forget that their is a church tax, then spend the entirety of their budget, and then not be able to pay the taxes. The possibility of this happening, realistically, is extremely low. The amount of churches that will actually be affected by this mismanagement of money is so low that I find it silly to see this as a feasible impact for Con’s side. Regardless, dividing $26,000 among 50 congregants is $520 per congregant, or around 0.01% of the average income [2]. Given the average giving to church per congregant is $1,038 [3], paying all of the taxes will be no problem. The only impact left on Thett’s side for this is the implication of mismanagement of money, which is a slim impact at best.What does “changing their business model” even mean? And what makes having to change it bad? I don’t see any negative impact in changing a “model” that would cause churches to close. The link between taxing churches and churches closing doesn’t work, since it is unwarranted and proven to be sustainable by congregation members. The only way a church can close is if they cannot pay off expenses (since it isn’t for-profit, it's for-religion, profit of a location is irrelevant) and I have shown that congregations will be able to fairly easily. Lastly, Thett calls for me to justify church taxation. This seems strange to call out this late in the debate, but I justify taxing churches through my framework and every argument I have made. By my uncontested framework, if taxing churches is a greater societal good than a harm then taxing churches is justified. That is why taxing churches is justified. Even regardless of that, Thett’s quick argument about the government providing roads and police protection ignores the fact that churches also take advantage of police protection and road transportation. Thus, by Thett’s own argument churches ought to pay taxes. Economic Benefits Alright, here I messed up big. Thett is right, legitimate operating expenses are tax deductible, did not know that until now. This essentially destroys most of my case, since by my own argument, 71% of income goes to operating expenses while the rest, 29% goes to charity. It isn’t exactly realistic that a church would only spend money on two things, and the third thing they spend it on would be taxable. But I said what I said, and since this is the last round I cannot take that back. That means that based on an income tax, the government would be getting a portion of the 0% of taxable profits, or 0$. This means that my income tax part of my case is negated, making the amount of money the government gets through my plan is $7.9 billion through property taxes. The next point of relevance comes when Thett argues that I can’t just assume that the money collected in taxes from churches would be donated to charity. Thett argues that it is not realistic to believe that the government would spend the money on charity. Since I am the affirming side I am allowed to put forth a plan in which to affirm the resolution, as long as it affirms the resolution I am allowed to use that plan. My plan, as I stated earlier, is to donate the collected money to charity. This is allowed and will happen under my plan. Church and State Thett responds to my argument by saying that the majority of Americans believe that religion should not play a role in politics because the Pope had to apologize after criticizing Trump. This argument doesn’t work, it's an appeal to popularity. Just because the majority of people believe that religion should not play a role in politics doesn’t mean that religion shouldn’t play a role in politics. Thett further argues that all it takes is one religious endorsement contrary to public good to sway the election and produce a negative result, and thus negative impact. This doesn’t work since endorsements are a neutral value. A religious organization could just as easily endorse a candidate for the public good than a candidate against the public good, and thus there is no impact either way here. It is a neutral value. The notion that a government relies on the church for legitimacy makes no sense and is unwarranted. The only way that Thett has proposed that religious organizations retaliate against the government is through getting involved through politics through endorsements, which as I just showed has no case. Thett’s entire argument based on separation of church and state relied on the church getting involved in politics through endorsements, which I proved is neutral. Thus Thett’s argument here is negated. Conclusion Through my plan $7.9 billion is raised in taxes. Given that $28 billion is used to save 6 million lives, $7.9 billion will be used to save 1.7 million lives. Even if we accept Thett’s unwarranted link between churches closing and taxes, and then accept that the link is logically sound, the argument still doesn’t work because reduction in people attending church leading to an increase in stress and depression is outweighed by the 1.7 million lives that are saved. In order for Thett’s impacts to outweigh mine, about 6 people would have to die per congregation as a result of taxing churches (1.7m/300k.) This is not realistic given Thett’s argument, thus I win this debate. Peace and Love [1] https://www.supermoney.com... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://amiccs.com...