Unfettered Letters

Churches deserve tax-exempt status

 The letter “Time to tax churches” (3/29) displays secular logic at its worst. Can the writer cite supporting evidence of police, ambulance and firefighter services being required for churches in greater or even equal proportions than the demand for such services due to drug pushers and users, various and sundry criminals (e.g., spouse and child abusers, careless and reckless drivers, thieves and bank robbers, assaulters and murderers), and arsonists and careless smokers?

And how many of the latter-named elements are involved in volunteerism with food pantries, homeless shelters and other worthwhile charitable and relief endeavors?

Only when that evidence is forthcoming can credibility be given to such myopic views.

Gary Lair
Odessa, Mo.
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 Let’s just tax all charities and everything else you can think of.
 
If you tax churches, then they should stop giving food, clothes, gasoline and money for heating bills to people in need. Also, the pastors should stop visiting parishioners who are hospitalized or are homebound.
 
Why are so many people against God and churches?
 
Jeanne L. Albin
 Warsaw, Mo.

Wealthy pay too much

In his column “Leader proves money can buy friendship after all” (4/4, Opinion), Carl Hiaasen disparages Rep. John Boehner while failing to mention the cozy relationships between lobbyists and many prominent Democrats.

He regurgitates the typical, tired liberal propaganda that the wealthy are not paying their fair share, and questioning the confiscatory Obama tax increases on the wealthy is being greedy.

Perhaps Hiaasen needs remediation in basic statistics. According to cbo.gov, the top 5 percent of wage-earners pay 44 percent of all taxes. Contrast this to the 60 percent of lowest wage-earners, who contribute only 14 percent of the tax revenues.

Hiaasen writes “If government is serious about rebooting the economy, reforming health care and improving education, everybody’s going to pay for it.” He just leaves out the truth that the wealthy are being asked to pay a large (dis)proportion of it.

Josh Weber
Westwood

Taxes too taxing

Assuming the article “Fear and loathing in the land of the 1040; Less than 20 percent of Americans brave this annual exam without professional help” ( 4/6, A-1) is accurate, then we have a situation with our income tax code that has reached new heights of insanity. It is a pathetic state of affairs when only 20 percent of Americans will attempt to file their income tax without outside help.

Be it a flat tax or a major simplification of the existing code, it is unfortunate that attention gets focused on this serious problem only at this time of year.

William Buechele
Shawnee

Why should I pay taxes?

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius failed to pay nearly $8,000 in taxes (an inadvertent mistake, I’m sure) until she was appointed to the Obama Cabinet. Then, like a host of other Cabinet appointees, she paid up.

I think I’ll stop paying taxes until I get a Cabinet appointment.

Sarah J. Childers
Olathe

Nominees’ tax errors

Do you think we’ll ever hear about a time when the “unintentional errors” of any Cabinet nominee (including our own Kathleen Sebelius) resulted in an overpayment of their income taxes?

Anne Hooper
Overland Park

Tax fattening foods

Let’s put an end to the smoker versus nonsmoker debate that seem to have consumed a good deal of recent editorial space. It’s time to share the love.

According to a recent study at the University of Oxford, being obese can take years off your life, and in some cases may be just as dangerous as smoking.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites that 34 percent of U.S adults age 20 and over are obese, while an estimated 20.8 percent of all adults smoke cigarettes. Clearly, obese adults trump those addicted to nicotine by a substantial margin. So in addition to an increased tax on tobacco products, let’s add an obesity tax to products such as soda pop, snack cakes, candy bars, potato chips and all fast-food restaurant items.

This plan will not only increase the funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program but will also help offset the current industry bailouts and trillion dollar deficit.

Yes, it’s time to share the love. Milk drinkers, beware.

Cindy Frantsen
Lee’s Summit

Time to tax churches

A solution to Kansas City’s budget problems might be to ask all the churches to pay their fair share of property taxes for the actual space they occupy.

Churches own a lot of land in the U.S. One main cause of our present economic problem is the shrinking of the tax base due to thousands of home foreclosures caused by the subprime mortgage mess. Surely it would be only fair and patriotic for churches to fulfill their function as charities, which gives them tax-exempt status in the first place, to pay taxes for the public good.

Food pantries and homeless shelters are worthwhile enterprises, but helping to maintain infrastructure and services such as the police, ambulances and firefighters, which benefit us all, is surely as important.

Church taxation would not threaten the First Amendment, either, as all religions would be united in their support of the state, not the other way around.

To paraphrase the words of Woody Guthrie, this land is our land. The churches should pay their share.

Elizabeth M. Gerber
Kansas City

AIG bonuses

So, the House decides to put a 90 percent tax on the bonuses of some American International Group employees, and the people rejoice (3/20, A-1). The Congress acts outraged, although many of them were aware of what was going on.

Before rejoicing, I think you should give some thought to what other group the government may decide to tax and what if you are in that group. It is disheartening that the government can decide to punish people by making new tax laws at the drop of a hat.

If you think the AIG employees didn’t do their job and don’t deserve a bonus, then we’ll have to tax Congress at 99 percent.

Loretta Childers
Olathe

Those of you complaining about how an American business spends its profits dug your own hole when you agreed to the initial bailout. You can’t mix socialism and free enterprise.

President Obama was wrong to sign the check over. He should have let AIG fail, and a better product from a smarter American would have taken its place. That’s how free enterprise is supposed to work.

Russ Bliss
Gladstone

I want AIG to immediately publish all the candidate names and amounts to whom they have given campaign contributions since 2000. I want those contributions back or a 110 percent retroactive tax on them.

Jim Sissel
Raytown

Stiffed by TIFs

and across the country are in dire straits when it comes to providing services in this economic downturn. The reason is simple — an eroded tax base from giving away millions of dollars a year in tax-increment financing, tax abatements and uncollected business taxes.

  That leaves only the small working stiff to make up the difference on their behalf. We don’t have any negotiation power to evade paying our taxes, like the big corporations have. 
 
C.D. Rinck Sr.
Mission

Tax cuts should apply to all

For those who think tax reduction was too great under President George W. Bush, why not return to the Clinton tax rates? But why not do this for everybody? Why interject class warfare?

If you believe the rich got the better end of the deal on reduction, wouldn’t it make sense that they will get the worse deal going back to the old rates?

Everyone should be in the game together. Democracy will fail (tyranny of the majority) if we divide the incentives.

Stephen Kunz
Overland Park