Captain Obvious says: No, but life isn't fair.

Religious institutions should be taxed double or triple (like cigarettes) for the public harm they cause.

I would go much farther on that religion tax Brian.

The great state of Connecticut has the taxes set up so as to not reduce the number of smokers as they are a large source of revenue. Based on some quick back of the envelope math, there is about 2.3 billion dollars/year at stake from direct taxes, the big tobacco settlement from a decade ago and the deals that we have with our two Indian casinos.

Any decrease in smoking would cost the state a crap load of cash, so they really don't want to end the gravy train, despite the two faced lie they make every time the question is raised.

A tax on religion should in some way take into account the fact that many of the worst groups directly assess their members 10% of their income. Since there is no transparency, accurate numbers just don't exist, so the first order of business needs to be figuring out some way to collect the information on just how much money they are actually siphoning out of the tax system in the first place.

I see all kinds of bussineses close in my area, restaurants, dry cleaners, etc. But not the fucking churches, it's seems like a new one pops up every year. I never researched how exactly they get tax exempt status or how the whole process works. I can't believe this shit is legal...

If it is written in the law, then it is legal. That does not make it right though.

Again, because no one challenged the law. Just like DOMA and DADT.

Where you been?  Some of the mega churches out west not only have day care, they have restaurants, gift shops, hair salons and more.  How they get around the prohibition about working on the sabbath, I don't know.

I've never been to one either - saw a report on TV - 60 minutes maybe?  Awhile ago.  Have one mega church just down the street from me.  Older, so it doesn't have all the whizz bangs some of the new ones do.  They did put in a pretty fancy RV park on one corner of the block they own a couple of years ago.  They have big evangelical meetings in the summer and people come and stay in the RV park or in what looks to me like storage sheds with electricity.  Pretty ugly and my husband and I call them the "dog kennels".

Yeah, even the smaller churches economically impact their local economy - including not paying taxes.  I'm of two minds about this.  When I was in junior high my best friend was a preacher's kid.  Her family had to move to a larger church as they were literally eating plain boiled rice three meals a day.  But then look at the life style of the Jim Bakkers and Ted Haggards.  People like that are definitely not paying enough taxes.

edit:  Hospitals - a couple locally are religious affiliated.  And yeah, insurance doesn't care.  All of the local hospitals are not for profit, so there aren't any private ones and those are the ones your insurance gets huffy about.  My sister who is a Jehovah's Witness wound up at a Catholic hospital for her by pass surgery.  It was funny because she is one of those who hate Catholics because they are "idolaters".  But they had a special ward and surgical unit for people who refuse blood transfusions.  And they wrote off the entire cost of her operation - she didn't have insurance and just a minimum wage job.  So she was impressed in spite of herself.

The most important thing you need to know is that starting a religion is only a way to make money if you are planning to be dishonest about it and break the law.  Funds from any non-profit may not enure to any private individuals.

Secular non-profits are also federally tax exempt (I don't know about all of the local laws).

There are only three advantages churches have over secular groups:

1. They aren't audited as frequently or as easily, and the reporting requirements are almost non-existent.

-This is only an advantage if you plan to be dishonest, as I have mentioned.  Otherwise it's just less a few hours of paperwork filing.

2. Bush's unconstitutional faith-based initiative.

3. Ministers of certain religions, and Amish, are allowed to exempt themselves from social security.

-They aren't supposed to get the benefits of social security, but some times still do (thus you are paying for religious figures to get benefits)

-The organization must demonstrate that it provides for them in some way for retirement.

There are secular equivalents to pretty much everything else.

Any on-location professional can exclude certain living expenses from income tax- the foreign exemption is something like 80k a year.  If you have a certain set of skills your employer needs, and you are relocating for your employer's benefit, you can also exclude the cost of housing and certain living expenses from your income.  Note:  The janitor at the church doesn't generally get this exclusion.  There's a matter of distinct professional skill required.  If he was specially trained to clean things and anoint them in holy water, then maybe... but that's beside the point.

As to those three points:

#1, as I have said, is only a real advantage if you are planning to be dishonest.  I hope you are not. 

#2 is a piece of shit law from a bigoted president in blatant violation of the constitution- we need standing in court to challenge it, and that kind of standing for suit would be difficult to find.  All I can suggest is that you withhold all of your taxes from the IRS, and instead send them a letter explaining the faith based initiative, and how it is against your religion to pay a tithe.  You'll have to put all of your seizable assets out of reach of the IRS, otherwise they'll just take what they are owed- that will force them to take you to court.  Spend a couple years fighting it, and you may eventually get a ruling from a higher court that you have to pay your taxes, but that the faith based initiative is unconstitutional federal spending.

This wouldn't be a means to personal profit either; it would just get government money back where it should be.

#3 This is the same kind of unconstitutional unfairness.  If you are ideologically opposed to paying social security tax, you could do the same as in #2- file the social security exemption forms and file a letter with the IRS.  You'll have to prove you have some kind of group of coop with ability to take care of you when you retire (a replacement for Social security), and then wait to be taken to court by the IRS.  Eventually, they court will be compelled to rule in your favor.

You would probably find that setting up the needed replacement for social security would cost about as much, or even more, than social security does though- this would be purely ideological, and not a means to profit.

(Edite) NOTE: 

Eep, I just realized:

Make sure you do this in a legal way!  Consult a tax professional/lawyer first if you plan to do anything like this! (Are there any tax experts of lawyers here?)

You don't want to be fined or jailed for moving your funds in an illegal way, or storing them somewhere illegal (this is particularly complicated since the patriot act- be careful what you do with money).

If you want to get rich honestly, invest in capitalistic enterprises.  If you want to get rich dishonestly... well, prepare to go to jail if you get caught.  I really don't think you want to follow in the footsteps of many of these famous preachers who have been exposed.

If you want to make a non-profit org- a church or a regular non-profit, it doesn't really matter which you go with unless you're trying to get federal funding.

Well, not a lawyer here but I do know what will ring alarm bells in high places.

Several decades ago, the feds set up a law that states that whenever $10,000 or more gets moved from one place to another, it will silently create a record that is apart from all the normal records of financial dealings. The idea being that that way, if anyone tried to to a bit of money laundering, they could tell right away.

Subsequently, you just can't keep that reporting system as secret as it was intended to be. Eventually, if the government wants criminal trials, they have to lay down evidence in public. So the scum criminals found out about it and pretty much started doing transactions that were below the threshold. This is called “structuring” (of financial transactions to avoid prosecution).

In order to make this law work, there is no specific dollar value attached and the government has to rely on traditional investigative techniques. However, if you are doing some fairly scummy things and you get caught, then having a whole series of, say, $9,000 transactions can get you an additional charge of structuring on to of what ever else you would have done wrong.

They do use that provision for tax evaders BTW. Kent Hovind and his wife ran at least 250 separate transactions to hide over two million dollars that way. Look where that ended them up.