The taxation situation of Vatican City is rather complicated. On one hand, there are no taxes for employees who work in Vatican City. On the other, they’ve owed a lot of money to Italy for tax agreements, and keep stiffing Israel over their taxes on religious properties. Regardless, it’s rather weird for the Pope to get involved in the government taxation debate like this
Taxes can be key to social justice, pope tells business leaders
Taxes are “an often misunderstood” tool of social justice and should not be seen as an example of a government overstepping its powers, Pope Francis told an audience of Italian business leaders on Monday.
The Argentine-born pope spoke ahead of a general election on Sept. 25 in Italy, a country noted for endemic tax evasion, where a right-wing coalition promising major tax cuts is on course for a clear victory.
“What taxes and duties are in the modern world and democracies is very important, [they are] an often misunderstood form of sharing,” Francis told members of Confindustria, Italy’s main business lobby.
If it’s being taken involuntarily, it’s not sharing.
In his speech, the pope also urged business leaders to share their wealth in other ways, including through charity, sticking to fair wage policies and creating new jobs, particularly for young people.
Easy for him to say. Does the Pope actually have to make a payroll himself? How much of the Vatican’s money is not spent yearly? Fair wage policies often make hiring extra people difficult. It’s kinda like all those people who demand a “living minimum wage” but do not actually run a business. Regardless, why is the Pope getting involved? He’s a man of God, not a politician. Maybe he could share by opening up the Vatican archives.
“The tax system and administration must be efficient and not corrupt. But taxes should not be considered as usurpation,” he added.
Except, it is an usurpation. It is taking the fruits of someone’s labor by force. To be clear, the Bible is not against taxation, because, ultimately, everything is God’s. And Jesus preached about giving and giving back. There’s nothing wrong with either. But, most tax systems are corrupt, or, at least, corrupted by those who run them.
National Parks Stste funded Univdrsities Public libraries Social zsecurity
All forms of SOCALIISM
Israel taxes religious institutions of Christians?
Teach: If it’s being taken involuntarily, it’s not sharing.
Conservatives want good roads, clean air and water, defense and protection, their Social Security, their Medicare, busy ports, border patrols, busy airports but just not pay for it themselves.
As children, connies never learned to share.
The Sage from St Louis wrote:
Naturally our madcap Missourian puts it that way, but he’s got it entirely wrong. Conservatives are willing to pay for “good roads, clean air and water, defense and protection, their Social Security, their Medicare, busy ports, border patrols, busy airports.” What we are not willing to pay for is welfare for the able-bodied indolent, schools which are trying to become homosexual and transsexual grooming facilities, prenatal infanticide, regimes which welcome the people who cross into our country illegally while not taking care or real American citizens, proxy wars with nuclear-armed nations, foreign aid to countries which hate us, and bureaucracies which try to control our lives.
We do expect to pay for good things, as many of us, including me, have paid for parochial schools for our children, while still not being relieved of the taxes to pay for the public schools which were so bad that we had to shell out our hard-earned money to pay again for something for which we had already been taxed.
Which is why, of course, more of us voluntarily go to church, voluntarily dropping our checks in the collection basket, and, as is the case in Catholic churches, frequently into second collections as well; last Sunday’s was for support of mission dioceses in the third world.
His Holiness the Pope seems to have forgotten the distinction between charity and taxes.
That’s all good to know. The mass of federal taxes pay for Social Security, Medicare and national defense!
You are, of course, lying that public schools are grooming kids for an LGBTQ life. Connies have long hated the idea of secular public education since it doesn’t reinforce connie tenets of white, christian, straight patriarchy and importantly the disdain for non-white, non-christian, non-straight equal rights.
Our Kentucky friend has made his feelings about programs such as SNAP (food), Medicaid (health care), housing assistance and child care assistance known. We just disagree on these issues. We get it. It seems fair to just let poor children die rather than confiscate monies from hard-working Americans.
Our economic system yields winners and losers – it’s the price we pay for capitalism. (BTW – we SUPPORT capitalism as the best system for generating societal wealth but impoverished “losers” are an adverse outcome).
In a complex and diverse nation like the US we will always have differences of opinions on important issues (this is what politics is all about). Conservatives supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq, costing trillions of dollars and thousands of young American lives, most libs opposed it. But we still paid our taxes.
This is not enough for forced-birth extremists who want to ban all abortions, even for 10 year olds raped by relatives and women with life-threatening issues. It was never about the costs. Just as it was never about states rights.
Church and religious charities make up the largest charitable contributions in the US but have never been enough for the need. We recognize that not everyone in America can be well. Steve Bannon raised millions to build a wall and still couldn’t get it built.