$600,000 a Week?
Lakewood church and Pastor Joel Osteen got ripped off on Sunday night for the approximately $600,000 in the church’s safe that was taken in on Sunday. I dunno know if my math is correct, but that means they bring in about $32 million a year just on Sundays. Tax free.
Bubba Jr calls Lakewood, which meets in Houston’s old basketball arena, “Six Flags Over Jesus.”
Osteen makes even more money with books, trinkets, and assorted whatnots.
Ain’t it time to tax churches?
You can’t tax rich people, you can’t tax corporations, and you can’t tax churchs.
That just leaves you and me babe, and I’m not sure about you.
1You might be on to something there. Especially since they are ignoring the tax code and endorsing candidates from their pulpits and ambos and altars.
2Yes, churches should be taxed. And I learned today that banks are spilling over onto the bailiwicks of corporations and corporations doing stuff that banks have rules against. I think maybe it’s time to look around and see what we can do.
3Don’t know about taxing ’em, but as the story of Jim and Tammy Faye reminds us, it never hurts to investigate ’em from time to time.
4It’s always been “interesting” to me.
Joel “inherited” his daddy’s church. Lucky Joel….
Joel has never….. in his life, that I know of, been to a Seminary…… he’s never been ordained as a “Pastor”, and as such…….as a “lay minister” or whatever…
He and his church should be taxed.
5hell, Osteen should be taxed just for the smarmy factor. After watching him for a couple of minutes I feel the need for a mental and physical shower.
6From Bubba Jr.: Would that be Six Flags Over HayZeus?
From when I lived in Central FL, the Mormon Church owned 300,000 acres of land (twice the size of Walt Disney World) and was trying hard to develop it into housing, business and office space. (With much opposition from locals.) When does a church turn into a real estate development firm?
7I certainly think a church bringing in $1M a week should be taxed. I also know that my church makes so little that a tax burden might shut them down. Then again, every spare penny it makes goes back into the neighborhood to help those in need. I don’t think these mega-churches can say that.
8SusanF: I think you’re onto something; a “sliding scale” might not hurt them. Same for other nonprofits, though: if they bring in more than certain amount (and I’m into multipliers of the cost of living or some such), they should also lose at least some portion of that free ride. NFL, I’m looking at you…
9Old joke from Dallas: Brother Chriswell (1stBaptist downtown D.) arrives at pearly gates. St. Peter can’t find his name in the list of preachers. Chriswell is furious. I am Pastor of the largest Baptist congregation in Texas. LOOK AGAIN!
Still not on list, so St. Pete tries other lists…ah, here you are… Brother Chriswel, 1st Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas: real estate!
10The self-proclaimed “preachers” who head these questionable “mega churches” should definitely be scrutinized by the IRS., as should the Televangelists who scam the very people who cannot afford it.
11SusanF, churches like yours doing the “good work” would qualify as non-profits. We want to sic the tax man on the Neon Dialing for Dollars Holes of Hypocrisy.
12JAKvirginia, to be truly fair the Mormon businesses do pay taxes when they are legally required to do so. Their church operations do not, but their businesses do.
13Note the $600,000 figure didn’t include credit card or online “gifts”. When Joel and Vickie are using taxfree dollars to support their lifestyle it’s time for them to pay up. I’ve seen an estimate from a credible source that we are losing up to $300 billion by giving churches tax breaks.
14I would call Lakewood Church “Six Flags Over Fake Jesus.”
15It was way past time 200 years ago!
16Susan F, I am happy to give churches the same deduction that every other business gets (yes, they are a business).
Render unto Caesar and all of that.
But as an atheist, I am tired of subsidizing religious institutions with my tax dollars. (Property tax exemptions are some of the most blaring problems, particularly for small communities).
Tax them no less than other entities. I am sure that their god of choice will be sure to make up the funds somehow.
17It’s actually more complicated than that. Churches do pay taxes. They pay taxes on their non-church property (if they own a school, for example) for which they earn income, and they pay tax on any income-producing ventures (for example, Joel Osteen’s books). Church employees pay tax on their salaries. Pastors are allowed to be exempt from social security if they choose (but obvs. they don’t get the benefit when they retire). Teachers also have the last option, at least they used to.
And speaking of sticking it to the churches, a European court ruled the Mormons must pay property taxes on one of their temples:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865597954/Temple-tax-European-court-rules-LDS-Church-must-pay-local-property-tax-for-Preston-England-temple.html?pg=all
18Lakewood had a sweetheart lease on their building until 2010 when Houston sold it to them for a measly $7.5 million. http://www.chron.com/life/houston-belief/article/Lakewood-to-buy-former-Compaq-Center-for-7-5M-1715379.php
19The last time Jesus walked into a temple with this kind of activity going on, he turned over their tables and accused them of running a den of thieves.
I’m guessing by the photo that this place has some kind of security in place though, big guys in event t-shirts who will chase Jesus on out of there before he even has a chance to get started. The tax assessor would probably have the same luck.
20I just noticed last week, a house down the street from me has redone their entrance and has a fancy name plate above the door “blah blah Church”. I’m thinking I may just have to convert my home to the “Cheryl Church of Christ”.
21Organized religion is the biggest tax avoidance swindle this country has ever seen. These mega-churches put Billy Sol Estes and Bernie Madoff to shame.
22Oh Good Grief. Don’t get me started on the Osteen grifters.
When we first moved to Houston, I called Lakewood for giggles. I asked if Joel Osteen would perform a wedding ceremony. They said he doesn’t do weddings or funerals. None of that regular church stuff. But they sure had tons of reading material to recommend & suggested I buy all Joel’s books which would meet any need I had.
Tax ’em. Tax ’em hard. Tax ’em now.
23The problem is that the IRS, which answers to our Congresscritters, is cowed by the money and politics involved in churches and their real estate and businesses, and so the IRS doesn’t enforce the current laws. And they don’t investigate churches that are blatantly breaking the laws forbidding endorsing candidates from the pulpit.
24$600,000 a week could help so many!
25And he’s not even ordained!!
This is just all kinds of wrong.
A lot of “non-profits” are a racket. You can spot ’em by the outrageously high salaries received by the top people.
26I see an embarrassment of riches without the embarrassment.
27Yes, put ’em under “non profit” scrutiny and watch what they drive and fly. Thanks for the clarification, Southern. Look, ordination isn’t really necessary to make them “godly” but it gives them some credibility. Folks who are old and know what’s what will know who’s real and who’s fake.
28Tax ’em! As a non-religionist (squishy agnostic here) I also resent subsidizing these palaces and kings, even storefront churches and mail order preachers, with my tax dollar. Just ain’t right.
29Marge Wood and Southern, good points both. But as JJ often reminds us, The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., has more work to do. While the spectacular crowd here is committed to reading and truth, we cannot forget the 47% the R$money didn’t mention, the uninformed voters who who brought us Dubya; twice. Gohmert their demographics and demagogues and fire up sentient voters of all ages.
My wife and I will drive the old geezers to the polls as always, but each year we strive to educate more of our crowd to simply get their own-selves to the polls.
30This is neither religion nor theology.
31THIS is entertainment.
Tax it as such
Years ago I lived in Dallas. One of the things that i liked, back then once a year it was published in the newspaper how much money was taken in every year. That’s been about 50 years ago.. It was a GREAT educational read. At the time i was so busy scratching to try to feed three children I didn’t have time to pay much attention. But the seeds were planted. I wish I could remember the paper, it was good. That is also where I learned how many millions Bob Hope, John Wayne, and that revered old hypocrite from SC that had the baby with the child maid “earned” from crappy desert land and the Farm Subsidies. I saved that clipping for years, until it fell apart. And I never could stomach watching euther of them again.
32I saw recently the good preacher bought a $10.5 million dollar house……dang Jesus is a great boss…
33I broke the screen on my ipad…drives me nuts with the typo’s
My son, still lives in Dallas is sending me another one…I don’t know what I will use for an excuse for all the typo’s then. I checked email and had Jim Hightower’s newsletter waiting. That same paper all those years ago was where I first saw Jim. I have never forgotten him. I was very glad to “find” him again. And the Beauty Shop. About the same time. It is so good to laugh about it all again once in awhile even as serious as it is. Staying mad with no power to do anything kinda warps my outlook on life. I NEED a chuckle once in awhile.
Jim and that paper are the reasons I became so interested in Politics.
34Amen sister!
35L. Ron Hubbard is supposed to have said, “The best way to make a million dollars is to start a religion.” Worked for him, but that was a while back, so it’s probably up to $100 million.
The IRS especially needs to investigate the preachers who stand in their pulpits openly endorsing a political party and candidates, DARING the IRS to challenge their tax exemption like any other organization that takes a political stand.
Thoreau said he didn’t see why the teacher should be taxed to support the preacher but not the other way around.
These rich SOBs need to find the verses in their Bibles where Jesus gave his opinion of being rich. They won’t have to look far in their red-letter editions to see it.
36Churches’ non-profit charitable functions should be tax exempt, as should any group’s non-profit charitable functions. Everything else should be taxes. There is no reason I should pay higher taxes or see reduced government services in order to subsidize someone else’s religion. If they want it, they should be free to pay for it.
37Tax that rat-faced little fraud. And others like him.
38Six Flags Over Jesus made me laugh! I am with Susan F.; our little church struggles with being able to pay our pastor and our mortgage, but we still manage to feed the homeless, provide food to the food bank and partake in other outreach programs. Oh, and we have (gasp) gay members! I think that is the real definition of “church”. Osteen took in more on one Sunday than our little church takes in in a year. Taxing us might prove to be our breaking point, BUT, if taxing churches would eliminate the Osteens of the world (it won’t), then I say tax away!
39Joel Osteen and his ilk are the theological equivalent of medical quackery. He is/they are Snake Oil salesmen at best.
And yes, Ole Scout, it is entertainment. Only in their fervid imaginations does their expression of Christianity have anything to do with the Baby Jesus born in a barn smelling of animal uh… dung and certainly nothing to do with the harsh reality of being nailed to boards filled with splinters and left hanging there to die an agonizing death.
40The Houston Chronicle says in today’s paper that Lakewood Church “brings in about $75 million in revenue annually”.
Those grifters should have to pay taxes on that. As long as I’ve lived in Houston, I have never heard of a single philanthropic thing that “church” has done in the name of goodness and Christianity.
Wondering about Olsteen’s net worth, I came across this:
“As senior pastor, Osteen draws no salary from the church, which has an annual budget of $70 million. Instead, he relies on income from his flourishing book sales, the most recent of which is I Declare: 31 Promises to Speak Over Your Life. Much of the content for his best sellers come from sermons he has preached at Lakewood. His book sales and related material brings in a reported $55 million. Joel has received as much as $13 million as advances on some of his books.
“Joel Osteen and his wife live in a 17,000 square foot mansion made of stone located on 1.86-acres in the Tall Timbers subdivision of River Oaks, Texas. The home is owned by Covenant Trust who will pay $260,000 in property taxes on the home valued at $10.5 million. The home contains six bedrooms each with its own bathroom. Also on the property are a one-bedroom guesthouse and a pool house.
“Joel Osteen has said that a person should never feel guilty for being rich, as God views that as an insult. Instead, he should praise God for blessing him with the money.”
http://www.howmuchmoneytheymake.com/public-figures/joel-osteen-net-worth-and-salary-lakewood-church.htm
I seem to recall somewhere that Tall Timbers is the most expensive part of the extraordinarily affluent River Oaks subdivision in Houston. I’m sure lil Joey and his lil bride, Vicky, deserve only the best, right?
41Guess he brushed that ” …rich man…through the eye of a needle” thing under the rug.
42Don’t these places have to be audited?
The money that comes in should be spent helping the poor, and how about that old republican saying that the government should not spend money on health care and that the churches would help – Anyone know which churches are helping?
43Great comment, with great information, @Elsie. I don’t believe a man should feel guilty about being rich — it’s how he got rich that he should feel guilty about.
If he hurt others, robbed others, took from others that which was not his to take, or received money based on promises he knows he cannot honor (give me $$ and you’ll go to Heaven — now how can he promise that?) — in those cases he should feel guilty as all get out and his family and friends should disown him rather than profit with him.
As to taxing him. Absolutely. If you can’t prove that 90% of what you bring in isn’t going out in the form of unpaid services to others, you should be taxed on the whole kit and caboodle. 10% of your income should be plenty to cover your salary and the mortgage (if any) on the church, plus your expenses. Otherwise you’re just a shill and should be treated as one.
44I want something that keeps that dude away from me.
45River Oaks, huh? That was ritzy back in the 70s. I can’t imagine what it looks like in the era of McMansions.
46