Taking Liberties: Taxing Church Attendance?

FoxNews ^ | Feb 10, 2011 | Douglas Kennedy

[Innovative]

"The city of Mission is taxing churches," he said. "And that’s clearly unconstitutional."

In August, the small town just north of Kansas City passed the so-called "driveway tax," a controversial charge, in addition to property taxes, for residents and businesses based on the number of times their driveway is used.

A big box store like Target can pay over $60,000 annually, while residents pay a flat rate of $72 dollars a year.

"The city of mission is taxing churches based on the number of people that come in and out of their driveway, the number of people that come to church," he said.

Mission's Mayor Laura McConwell, who has overseen the proposal and implementation of the program disagrees.

"This is not a tax," She said in a telephone interview. "This is a fee."

[Logical me]

Damn these fools. America is gone.

[Surrounded_too]

Just wait until they force nerve implants or sensitivity bracelets in order to tax orgasms.

It will be a fee to discourage overpopulation figuring that the less often everybody enjoys married bliss, the lower the expenses will be to run schools five years later.

More creeping socialism - incremental cyanide.

[Innovative]

“America is gone.”

The only question remains is whether we need to buy prayer rugs and learn which way is Mecca or should we learn Chinese instead...

[momtothree]

Seems to me that the residents of the city pay their darn taxes; therefore, they pay for the road to park their cars. This is just evil in my book. Just a way to eliminate some churches. With everything going on in our country and the world, we need people to go to church more than ever. Just a thought.

[cva66snipe]

It seems to me the citizens of that town should be angry enough to demand some city officials resignations. I would not pay to use my own driveway and I sure would not put up with a church I attended being taxed by seating. On the other hand it may be a liberal majority town that thinks unconstitutional taxes are just great who knows?

[Candor7]

Kansas City also is discussing installing meters on people’s toilets and imposing a user pay tax which charges the set tax rate per flushing. You pull that toilet handle, and cha- ching, its auto deducted from your debit account right away./s

Implants are being discussed for both male ad female sexual organs, so that inndividuals can be taxed on every ocassion they engage in joint or solitary sexual practises. A radio beacon flashes a signal to a satellite, and CHA-CHINGETY CHING ,the set tax rate amount is auto deducted from your debit account. The Kansas City policy is that people have to much free sex these days.It needs to be metered.And besides, the tax rolls are open for public inspection as is always the case./s

They have no business cotrolling who or how many folks use
private drive ways. They need to get out of people’s lives and stay out.

[17th Miss Regt]

They need to be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail. If they keep doing this they might provoke something a little more severe.

[presently no screen name]

Did the citizens of mission know about this? Or is a big gov’t doing what citizens don’t know they need?

[Rebelbase]

The city taxes businesses here for impervious surfaces. They call it a runoff tax.

[Pollster1]

See my post 10 — they count the seats in the church, and charge accordingly, even if nobody shows up.

If it really is a tax on seats (which I did not find on line), then there is an easy answer that can be inserted into the church bulletin: "To avoid cutting our services to those in greatest need, all pews have been removed for so long as the immoral tax on seats in each church imposed by City Administrator Mike Scanlon

The guilty party: Mike Scanlon

is in force. We regret the inconvenience to decent members of our congregation and especially to the elderly. Our pews will be reinstalled as soon as City Administrator Mike Scanlon mscanlon@missionks.org or the replacement to be named by Mayor Laura McConwell lmcconwell@missionks.org revokes this pew tax. It is our deepest hope that this tax wording was not chosen for the purpose of punishing our members while letting Islam have a free ride."

Church with pews - taxed

Mosque with no "seats" - not taxed?

Wouldn't that be fun?

[SZonian]

This is not a tax, it's a fee...

[MarineBrat]

“This is not a tax, this is a fee.”

Filthy lousy rotten scum of the Earth alert. Those are fighting words if I’ve ever heard them.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Innovative. Obama should be charged taxes on each of those Jeremiah Wright sermons that he claims he never heard, we could balance the budget.

[Innovative]

“For churches, the tax is based on an assumption about the number of vehicle trips.

“Single family homes are assessed a fixed rate of $72 per year while 5.8 total weekly vehicle trips are estimated per worship facility seat to calculate the tax amount for churches,” ADF said.

From: Town taxes Christians for listening to sermons http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=242657#ixzz1Do0Zwysz

[Innovative]

“The city has an oddly precise formula to calculate how much of churches’ coffers should go toward the fee. According to its logic, each seat on each pew in the church generates 5.8 car trips per week. “

http://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2010/12/mission_churches_driveway_tax.php

[jimpick]

If they start taxing churches they are then free to preach politics in their sermons.

[BenKenobi]

“We don’t need to pay the fee”
You don’t need to pay.
“This isn’t the parish you are looking for”
No, no, it isn’t.
“Move along”

[SZonian]

The Master has spoken...

I’m not worthy to be a padawan.

[usconservative]

So, how do these b0z0s get re-elected?

See: OBAMA VOTER.

[Monorprise]

There was a time when many States required church attendance.