Why aren&#39;t churches registered more massively? When reading an article in the Huffington Post about how easy it is to register a church (as shown by John Oliver) I was wondering why the practice is not more widespread. The American IRS does not take a position on religions so a minimal effort to check the marks would easily allow for tax benefits. I would guess that the more money is on the table, the more &quot;organized&quot; the organization could be (I am not talking about the philosophical aspect but the formal one, that is having all the processes in place so that an audit comes clean)). I am from Europe where the financing of churches is more around taxing the believers, rather than having the church exempted from paying taxes so the usefulness of having a church is smaller (this is visible through the small number of recent churches, and when these arise it is rather a matter of dogma)). It seems however than in the US it is different.
Ignoring the question of whether knowingly trying to deceive the IRS about the nature and purposes of an organization is a crime or even a lie, running any sort of tax-exempt organization for your own benefit is tax evasion and a crime. What you propose actually does happen in the US, but it's non commonly done by claiming tax exempt status a religious organization. Instead of registering fake churches (which strictly speaking isn't necessary as user6726's answer says), it's simpler just to register a fake charity. You don't need any of those things that you've noted that the IRS says a religious organization must have. Done intelligently, people running these scam charities do just enough charitable work to avoid investigation by the authorities while diverting the majority of earnings and donations of the organization to themselves through salaries and payments to for-profit businesses they own. Done not-so-intelligently, virtually all the proceeds of the scam charity end up in the hands the people running it, and those people often get caught and end up in jail. If proven, the charges against Steve Bannon would be a notable recent example of this. While it's less common with religious organizations, people have done time for misusing a religious organization's tax exempt status. For example a Virginia couple were sentenced to prison for crimes relating to a scheme to route profits from a business through a religion organization they had set up.
Different jurisdictions have different attitudes and histories. The difference is probably more cultural than legal and both leases are quite likely legal in both jurisdictions. In general, US jurisdictions tend towards laissez-faire capitalism and contracts have a buyer beware slant. Civil-law European countries are much more collective and have very strong consumer protection. Canada and other Commonwealth countries fall somewhere in the middle.
For the same reason that states require doctors to be licensed Surely, if I want an unqualified, unlicensed surgeon (or a person that says they’re a surgeon) to crack open my cranium and poke my brain, that’s up to me? There is no doubt that requiring people to attend medical school for half a decade and then spending a similar period as an intern and a resident is a large barrier to entry compared to handing high school graduates a scalpel and a bone saw and telling them to learn on the job. The same applies to engineers, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, builders etc. I mean if a building falls down because the engineer or builder didn’t know what they were doing, it can’t kill that many people, can it? Even drivers for that matter - it’s a large cost to individuals and businesses to learn to drive, pass a test, maintain a license and a relatively clean record, register a car, keep it roadworthy etc. Surely it would be simpler to let anyone drive anything and if they cause someone harm, like dying, for that individual to seek redress through the courts? We’ll, there’s a reason why states mandate things and it’s economic rather than legal. When people don’t trust each other transaction costs go up. These costs are usually borne by the consumer as the suppliers engage in a “race to the bottom” - whoever provides the worst service at the lowest cost wins. Further, these costs are borne unevenly - most consumers are fine, some are very severely damaged; possibly with no real redress. By imposing minimum standards, the state places these costs in the hands of the people who are best positioned to manage them - the supplier. Once a user has given their data to the supplier they have no control over it. Therefore the economical optimal solution to maximize economy-wide output is to make the supplier legally responsible for managing the data in accordance with minimum standards. Extraterritoriality In an ideal world, there would be universal privacy standards. There would also be universal standards for training doctors and engineers. But there aren’t. Therefore, countries and states impose their own standards on organizations that operate within their jurisdiction. The threshold for the GDPR (and most other privacy laws) is whether you are targeting users within their jurisdiction. If so, they have the power under international law to assert sovereignty even if you are located elsewhere. A state has power where it says it has power. Otherwise, you could plan a terrorist attack on the USA from the UK and not have to fear prosecution. That’s what extradition treaties and honoring other nation’s civil judgements is all about. A website or similar platform operates in each and every jurisdiction it is accessible from. Like a surgeon with unlimited plane tickets. Therefore, it must comply with the law in each and every jurisdiction it’s operating in. Countries have adopted one of 2 solutions - China’s is to simply block all external sites, everyone else has said you can operate here but you have to follow our rules, just like every other business has to. Now, you may not like this but there is no doubt they have the legal power to do it.
The Cayman Islands are well known as a tax haven. They have a corporate tax of 0%, and that includes income from abroad. So by moving your company officially to the Cayman Islands, you can avoid to pay a lot of taxes. Now of course most other countries will still send you a tax bill for any income you make with business activities within their borders. But there are accounting tricks to get around that. For example, many countries only tax profits, not revenue. So you can reduce your annual profits of your national subsidiaries to zero by having them pay money to your company on the caymans. For example, you can transfer your trademark to your subsidiary on the Cayman Islands and then have your subisdiaries in all other countries pay the Cayman company an annual license fee for using that brand name. And the license fee happens to be just so expensive that your national taxable profits become zero. And no, that's not just a Chinese thing. Corporations all around the world use that method to avoid taxes.
International organizations such as the UN are typically treated similar to foreign governments, and thus enjoy various privileges. One consequence is that typically, income from employment by these organizations is not subject to taxation by the host countries where the employee lives or carries out their work. However, the details depend very much on the tax laws in that host country. The employee might still be required to file taxes, but would then likely be able to declare the income as tax-free under the corresponding provision of the national tax law. This usually also depends a lot on the treaties which created the international organisation. For example, the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations contains an explicit tax exemption for UN officials, though not necessarily for regular employees. As an example for how a country treats employees of international organization, the IRS has guidance regarding US tax law here. Other countries tend to have similar rules, albeit with less accessible online documentation :)
There is currently no law requiring a candidate for US President to release tax records to appear on the ballot. Nor is there any law requiring the President to release such records after taking office. There are laws requiring members of congress, and other Federal officials, to make public some limited information about their finances. This is much less than the information that would be included in an income tax return. Congress could pass a law requiring candidates to release their returns, but it seems unlikely that the current Congress will do so. States have broad authority over Federal elections. A state could pass a law requiring a candidate to release his or her returns as a condition of appearing on the ballot. Such a law might be challenged on Due process grounds. This would be an untested legal area, so there is no telling how a court would rule on such a challenge to such a law. Congress, or an individual house of Congress, may subpoena almost any information in pursuit of its investigation function. Investigations must be related to possible legislation, meaning it must be related to a subject about which Congress has power to pass a law. But the relation can be rather remote, as long as the information might inform the judgement of members of congress in considering a possible law. There does not have to be an actual law under consideration. Investigations have been challenged, and in a few cases there have been court rulings that an investigation was not related to possible legislation, and so Congress was not allowed to enforce subpoenas on that subject, nor to compel testimony. But such rulings have been rare. Previous Presidents have asserted, under the name of "Executive privilege", a right not to disclose information, such as internal discussions within the executive branch. This is not explicitly specified by the US Constitution, nor by any law, but has been generally accepted, and in some cases supported by court rulings. No court has ever clearly defined the extent or limits of Executive privilege. A House committee issued a subpoena this year for President Trump's tax records, or some of them. I forget whether this was addressed to the IRS or to the Treasury Dept. This has been challenged in court, and the matter is still in court. I be3live that one of the grounds asserted against the subpoena was that it was not to look into tax issues, as specified in the law authorizing the subpoena. No one yet knows how that case will proceed. The NY State Attorney General is investigating allegations that the Trump Organization, and various individuals, violated NY law, including by falsely reporting campaign expenses and contributions. In pursuit of that investigation, he issued a subpoena for various records which he claims will reveal possible evidence of those illegal actions. He pretty learly has the authority to subpoena records which might be evidence in a criminal case. This subpoena has also been challenged, but seems pretty likely to be upheld. However the subpoena was as part of a Grand Jury investigation, and Grand Jury proceedings, including evidence obtained by subpoena, are by law secret unless an indictment and trial results. So even if the subpoena is upheld, this should not lead to the public release of the records, unless someone is put on trial for some crime, and the records are evidence in that case. Even then the judge can order the records not to be released to the public.
Legally there is no problem. What you say is protected speech under the 1st Amendment as long as it is either true or a matter of opinion. However Ron Beyer's comment is a good one; while legal this sounds very inadvisable. You would be far better off hiring a lawyer. The Mr Dicks of this world make money from the widespread fear of legal action. He will probably fold as soon as he sees a letter from a lawyer threatening a lawsuit. Until then stalling doesn't cost him anything so he will carry on doing it. BTW, don't delay. I don't know about the US, but over here in the UK there are a number of ways that people like Mr Dick can make it hard to collect. Don't give him time to play shell games with his assets.
In the second case, is there anything to declare to the taxes? Yes, just like in the scenario of depositing in your bank account. Otherwise it would be easy for everybody to avoid the heavy tax burden by bartering or transacting without the use of official currency. The Code général des impôts in its Article 13 includes in the concept of bénéfice ou revenu imposable the market value of profits and benefits in kind (&quot;y compris la valeur des profits et avantages en nature&quot;).