Trump threatens to pull tax exempt status from schools

[NewYorkExpress]

https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/07/10/trump-threatens-to-pull-tax-exemption-for-schools-colleges/

In his push to get schools and colleges to reopen this fall, President Donald Trump is again taking aim at their finances, this time threatening their tax-exempt status.

Trump said on Twitter on Friday he was ordering the Treasury Department to re-examine the tax-exempt status of schools that he says provide “radical indoctrination” instead of education.

“Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education,” he tweeted. “Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status and/or Funding, which will be taken away if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues. Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!”

The Republican president did not explain what prompted the remark or which schools would be reviewed. But the threat is just one more that Trump has issued against schools as he ratchets up pressure to get them to open this fall. Twice this week Trump threatened to cut federal funding for schools that don’t reopen, including in an earlier tweet on Friday.

On what grounds could President Trump (or any other President) do this?

[Landslide Lyndon]

He won't rest until he has managed to repel from the party every single suburban voter (especially the female ones).

[Koharu]

WTF. He's not just shoveling his own crap, he's buying it now, too.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

On what grounds does the left intend to do it for religious institutions? It's much harder to call our disastrous University system anything but motivated by profit.

Now, if only anybody was calling for an end to this treatment for hospitals.

[Progressive Pessimist]

The only way Trump knows how to govern is through blackmail, extortion, and threats. He really is a mafioso wannabe.

[Fuzzy Bear]

The only way Trump knows how to govern is through blackmail, extortion, and threats. He really is a mafioso wannabe.

Good to know you oppose boycotting Goya foods.

Good to know you oppose firing principals because they question BLM on social media.

Those sorts of behaviors are blackmail, extortion, and threats, are they not?

I agree with Trump as to what the vast majority of our universities have become.  I'm fine with defunding them lawfully.  After that happens, we can restructure our educational system in such a way as to ensure that our graduates don't come out actively loathing America.

[T'Chenka]

The only way Trump knows how to govern is through blackmail, extortion, and threats. He really is a mafioso wannabe.

Good to know you oppose boycotting Goya foods.

Good to know you oppose firing principals because they question BLM on social media.

Those sorts of behaviors are blackmail, extortion, and threats, are they not?

"Two wrongs make a right" - Fuzzy Bear

[Former President tack50]

On what grounds does the left intend to do it for religious institutions? It's much harder to call our disastrous University system anything but motivated by profit.

Now, if only anybody was calling for an end to this treatment for hospitals.

Very simple, the state should not subsidize religion by giving it tax exempt status.

I do agree that for profit universities are very bad though, and I'd also consider removing the tax exempt status from private, for profit universities and schools but not from all schools.

[Continential]

The only way Trump knows how to govern is through blackmail, extortion, and threats. He really is a mafioso wannabe.

Good to know you oppose boycotting Goya foods.

Good to know you oppose firing principals because they question BLM on social media.

Those sorts of behaviors are blackmail, extortion, and threats, are they not?

I agree with Trump as to what the vast majority of our universities have become.  I'm fine with defunding them lawfully.  After that happens, we can restructure our educational system in such a way as to ensure that our graduates don't come out actively loathing America.

The radical actvities were started by students, not the teachers, and the students have different views.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/07/10/trump-threatens-to-pull-tax-exemption-for-schools-colleges/

In his push to get schools and colleges to reopen this fall, President Donald Trump is again taking aim at their finances, this time threatening their tax-exempt status.

Trump said on Twitter on Friday he was ordering the Treasury Department to re-examine the tax-exempt status of schools that he says provide “radical indoctrination” instead of education.

“Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education,” he tweeted. “Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status and/or Funding, which will be taken away if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues. Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!”

The Republican president did not explain what prompted the remark or which schools would be reviewed. But the threat is just one more that Trump has issued against schools as he ratchets up pressure to get them to open this fall. Twice this week Trump threatened to cut federal funding for schools that don’t reopen, including in an earlier tweet on Friday.

On what grounds could President Trump (or any other President) do this?

I'm pretty sure it would be disallowed by the courts as constituting viewpoint discrimination.  Anyway Trump has threatened this before and nothing came of it.

[Fuzzy Bear]

The only way Trump knows how to govern is through blackmail, extortion, and threats. He really is a mafioso wannabe.

Good to know you oppose boycotting Goya foods.

Good to know you oppose firing principals because they question BLM on social media.

Those sorts of behaviors are blackmail, extortion, and threats, are they not?

"Two wrongs make a right" - Fuzzy Bear

People have a right to examine what they're funding through their public tax dollars.

When a country's higher education system is saturated with professors who fundamentally hate their country, and infuse that hatred of their own country into the minds of their students through the use of curricula, the end result is a country hopelessly divided against itself to where it will not be able to respond to threats to its national well-being.  This is what happens when "academic freedom" becomes license to propulgate anti-American views, as well as viewpoints that repudiate individual rights in favor of the sort of groupthink that seeks to demonize individuals who dissent.  This wasn't right in the days of the Red Scare and Joe McCarthy, but we have now made it to the exact opposite end of that spectrum in academia.

Millions of the people footing the bill for public education in America deeply object to the content of curricula and to the anti-American atmospheres on many campuses.  They have a right to ask their public officials to rein this in.  People have a right to free speech, but they don't have the right to the government subsidizing the kind of public education that Americans would deeply object to if they were fully aware of what is being presented.

[Del Tachi]

I'm getting "Obama using the IRS to target conservative groups" vibes from this one

[MasterJedi]

The only way Trump knows how to govern is through blackmail, extortion, and threats. He really is a mafioso wannabe.

Good to know you oppose boycotting Goya foods.

Good to know you oppose firing principals because they question BLM on social media.

Those sorts of behaviors are blackmail, extortion, and threats, are they not?

"Two wrongs make a right" - Fuzzy Bear

People have a right to examine what they're funding through their public tax dollars.

When a country's higher education system is saturated with professors who fundamentally hate their country, and infuse that hatred of their own country into the minds of their students through the use of curricula, the end result is a country hopelessly divided against itself to where it will not be able to respond to threats to its national well-being.  This is what happens when "academic freedom" becomes license to propulgate anti-American views, as well as viewpoints that repudiate individual rights in favor of the sort of groupthink that seeks to demonize individuals who dissent.  This wasn't right in the days of the Red Scare and Joe McCarthy, but we have now made it to the exact opposite end of that spectrum in academia.

Millions of the people footing the bill for public education in America deeply object to the content of curricula and to the anti-American atmospheres on many campuses.  They have a right to ask their public officials to rein this in.  People have a right to free speech, but they don't have the right to the government subsidizing the kind of public education that Americans would deeply object to if they were fully aware of what is being presented.

Get help. You might try actually getting the Jesus you scream about falsely.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

On what grounds does the left intend to do it for religious institutions? It's much harder to call our disastrous University system anything but motivated by profit.

Now, if only anybody was calling for an end to this treatment for hospitals.

Very simple, the state should not subsidize religion by giving it tax exempt status.

I do agree that for profit universities are very bad though, and I'd also consider removing the tax exempt status from private, for profit universities and schools but not from all schools.

Have you not read what has already been written before being the fifth person to parrot this ignorant line? The Church would not pay taxes anyway even if taxes applied to churches because it would ensure all its money went to social causes so there would be no profit to tax. That is not even true of most non-profit entities which are definitely permitted to make a profit, but it is not true of the Church.

Even so, your misleading terminology is embarrassing and solely exists to incite hatred, but I'll give you the benefit of being a European. The purpose of being a non-profit is to be able to receive donations from people who receive a deduction for charitable giving. Under the new Trump tax code, it is very difficult to even receive this deduction, and the vast majority of donations are no longer eligible for deduction. Almost all ordinary collections covering operating expenses are indeed taxed and people do not take a special deduction for them - and since they are offset by expenses they are not a profit to the church. Assuming the donor is paying the maximum SALT deduction (crazy assumption that anyone is paying $10,000 in SALT but it happens in a few states for the very rich), they would have to make a donation of ~3X+$14,000 (and likely closer to ~3X+$24,000) for the government to miss out on revenue of X. I don't think most church revenue is coming from people giving in increments of tens of thousands of dollars each year. Even if it were, this is simply good policy. If you get a single individual to forgo, say $29,000, in income that they would have paid $5,000 in tax on so that the Church can cover social work and public goods in the amount of $29k vs what the US government would be able to provide for $5k, I think that's a pretty solid trade-off.

If one opposes something that is good policy just because the social services or public goods are religiously affiliated, that person might be a bigot. There is no sense in providing admission-charging museums with this same subsidy while opposing it for public buildings. At the church I visited on Columbus Day, they positively railed against Kamala Harris for this bigotry, which is why I will never support a ticket with her on it.

If one is outraged that you can get a deduction for forgoing income so that social services can be provided more than one is about our government allowing a deduction for mortgage interest, which only serves a purpose of selfish wealth-building and subsidizing banks, you might be a Randian. Only one party is this country is actively campaigning to increase the deduction limit for mortgage interest, and it is the one with a vocal minority looking to tax donations to religiously affiliated institutions.

If you want the government to collect more in tax revenue, this should be about 99th on your priority list unless your goal is to just sic it to the churches.

On your point about universities, I think there is just a legal terminology you are confused by. America does have some for-profit universities (mostly in Florida and Arizona these days), and they are taxed because the profits are given to shareholders. As I mentioned earlier, non-profits are absolutely permitted to make a profit. Last year, my institution made an operating profit of tens of millions tax-free, partially on the backs of charging their $70k annual tuition (at least the Ivies have generous aid). Not only that, this is separate from the tax-free capital gains and tax-subsidized donations provided by alumni not for a social service but to be purposefully and increasingly exclusionary. If public institutions are not making a profit, what do they have to be worried about exactly? We'd be better if most of these scam institutions did not exist.

[Former President tack50]

On what grounds does the left intend to do it for religious institutions? It's much harder to call our disastrous University system anything but motivated by profit.

Now, if only anybody was calling for an end to this treatment for hospitals.

Very simple, the state should not subsidize religion by giving it tax exempt status.

I do agree that for profit universities are very bad though, and I'd also consider removing the tax exempt status from private, for profit universities and schools but not from all schools.

Have you not read what has already been written before being the fifth person to parrot this ignorant line? The Church would not pay taxes anyway even if taxes applied to churches because it would ensure all its money went to social causes so there would be no profit to tax. That is not even true of most non-profit entities which are definitely permitted to make a profit, but it is not true of the Church.

Even so, your misleading terminology is embarrassing and solely exists to incite hatred, but I'll give you the benefit of being a European. The purpose of being a non-profit is to be able to receive donations from people who receive a deduction for charitable giving. Under the new Trump tax code, it is very difficult to even receive this deduction, and the vast majority of donations are no longer eligible for deduction. Almost all ordinary collections covering operating expenses are indeed taxed and people do not take a special deduction for them - and since they are offset by expenses they are not a profit to the church. Assuming the donor is paying the maximum home interest deduction (crazy assumption that anyone is paying $10,000 in annual interest), they would have to make a donation of ~3X+$14,000 (and likely closer to ~3X+$24,000) for the government to miss out on revenue of X. I don't think most church revenue is coming from people giving in increments of tens of thousands of dollars each year. Even if it were, this is simply good policy. If you get a single individual to forgo, say $29,000, in income that they would have paid $5,000 in tax on so that the Church can cover social work and public goods in the amount of $29k vs what the US government would be able to provide for $5k, I think that's a pretty solid trade-off.

If one opposes something that is good policy just because the social services or public goods are religiously affiliated, that person might be a bigot. There is no sense in providing admission-charging museums with this same subsidy while opposing it for public buildings. At the church I visited on Columbus Day, they positively railed against Kamala Harris for this bigotry, which is why I will never support a ticket with her on it.

If one is outraged that you can get a deduction for forgoing income so that social services can be provided more than one is about our government allowing a deduction for mortgage interest, which only serves a purpose of selfish wealth-building and subsidizing banks, you might be a Randian. Only one party is this country is actively campaigning to increase the deduction limit for mortgage interest, and it is the one with a vocal minority looking to tax donations to religiously affiliated institutions.

If you want the government to collect more in tax revenue, this should be about 99th on your priority list unless your goal is to just sic it to the churches.

On your point about universities, I think there is just a legal terminology you are confused by. America does have some for-profit universities (mostly in Florida and Arizona these days), and they are taxed because the profits are given to shareholders. As I mentioned earlier, non-profits are absolutely permitted to make a profit. Last year, my institution made an operating profit of tens of millions tax-free, partially on the backs of charging their $70k annual tuition (at least the Ivies have generous aid). Not only that, this is separate from the tax-free capital gains and tax-subsidized donations provided by alumni not for a social service but to be purposefully and increasingly exclusionary. If public institutions are not making a profit, what do they have to be worried about exactly? We'd be better if most of these scam institutions did not exist.

Fair enough. I will say that the church here does indeed not pay some taxes on their property, most importantly property tax (IBI) but also other taxes. This is bad and something that should end; I do not want to further subsidize religion. So I assumed a similar scheme also applied in the US where the church does not pay property tax or other such taxes

There is also a box you can tick when you file your taxes to give 0.7% to either the Catholic Church, "other social institutions", or the government if you do not tick either box. I actually am ok with this even if it is not a perfect system.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Fair enough. I will say that the church here does indeed not pay some taxes on their property, most importantly property tax (IBI) but also other taxes. This is bad and something that should end; I do not want to further subsidize religion. So I assumed a similar scheme also applied in the US where the church does not pay property tax or other such taxes

There is also a box you can tick when you file your taxes to give 0.7% to either the Catholic Church, "other social institutions", or the government if you do not tick either box. I actually am ok with this even if it is not a perfect system.

Understood - when people here are talking about tax-exempt, it is usually the income tax exemption. It is true that churches are exempt from property taxes, but I view this as no different from free museums (which is what the most valuable properties effectively are) and universities (which have such extreme security to keep out the undesirables). Property taxes are applied by the state municipality, so actions by the federal government wouldn't affect that.

[WD]

I'm getting "Obama using the IRS to target conservative groups" vibes from this one

That never happened.

[pbrower2a]

The only way Trump knows how to govern is through blackmail, extortion, and threats. He really is a mafioso wannabe.

Good to know you oppose boycotting Goya foods.

Good to know you oppose firing principals because they question BLM on social media.

Those sorts of behaviors are blackmail, extortion, and threats, are they not?

"Two wrongs make a right" - Fuzzy Bear

People have a right to examine what they're funding through their public tax dollars.

For many such schools, a huge number are in "education" preparing them to be K-12 teachers. If the future K-12 teachers had to attend high-priced private colleges and end up with huge student loans, then you could imagine what that would do to teachers' salaries... and property taxes. Then you have huge numbers of kids preparing for careers as clergy.

When a country's higher education system is saturated with professors who fundamentally hate their country, and infuse that hatred of their own country into the minds of their students through the use of curricula, the end result is a country hopelessly divided against itself to where it will not be able to respond to threats to its national well-being.  This is what happens when "academic freedom" becomes license to propagate anti-American views, as well as viewpoints that repudiate individual rights in favor of the sort of groupthink that seeks to demonize individuals who dissent.  This wasn't right in the days of the Red Scare and Joe McCarthy, but we have now made it to the exact opposite end of that spectrum in academia.

What do you mean by anti-American? Saying that America isn't so special? Some countries have caught up with us in economic development -- well enough that America has net immigration near zero from some countries that used to be sources of immigrants (Germany, the UK, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Canada)...

Is it anti-American to say that America is a corporate welfare state run largely for the enrichment and pampering of extant elites? Is it anti-American to recognize that blacks have generally gotten the shaft in America?

Fixing what is wrong in America is not treacherous; it is the definitive expression of patriotism. The plutocrat who tells us that those who have the assets have the right to abuse people is a far better advertisement for Marxism than is any alienated intellectual who secretly wishes that he had been a real-estate developer instead of a college professor.   

Millions of the people footing the bill for public education in America deeply object to the content of curricula and to the anti-American atmospheres on many campuses.  They have a right to ask their public officials to rein this in.  People have a right to free speech, but they don't have the right to the government subsidizing the kind of public education that Americans would deeply object to if they were fully aware of what is being presented.

Academic freedom says otherwise. Unlike K-12 teachers who have the obligation to express that there is another side to almost all issues (crime, drugs, violence, racism, child sexuality, and dropping out of school are not equal and opposite sides of their antithesis), college professors can challenge smart youth about their assumptions -- and if they are good, they do. One is that American capitalism as it now operates is the best of all possible worlds. Yeah, sure... economic inequality is at its greatest peak since the 1920's, the landlord is the king in this economy, economic mobility works only one way for people not born to wealth and privilege -- down, Donald Trump is the manifestation of an ideology that says that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as it turns, enforces, or indulges a profit for those already filthy-rich...

if we had something more like the Eisenhower economy in which people who did real work got real pay and life weren't simply paying economic elites a high price for the opportunity to be ill-paid toilers, many of us would be happier.


Many people have a problem with such issues as evolution. Tough. The scientific discussion is practically over.

[Hindsight was 2020]

If Talk Elections was around in 1973:
Man I cant believe that Nixon would take part in such dirty tactics
Fuzzy- Oh so I suppose you’re also against the California grape boycotts too?

[T'Chenka]

People have a right to examine what they're funding through their public tax dollars.

When a country's higher education system is saturated with professors who fundamentally hate their country, and infuse that hatred of their own country into the minds of their students through the use of curricula, the end result is a country hopelessly divided against itself to where it will not be able to respond to threats to its national well-being.  

Okay, but you're missing a MASSIVE piece of context here: do the professors need to change or does America need to change? Because many would argue that the professors are mostly correct and the solution to the problem has nothing to do with the professors.

[RI]

As cathartic as it would be, simply pulling tax-exempt status (and doing so arbitrarily, it sounds) is probably not the best way to go. I would love to see an endowment tax on private universities and an end to our current student loan subsidization system, though.

[Alben Barkley]

The only way Trump knows how to govern is through blackmail, extortion, and threats. He really is a mafioso wannabe.

Good to know you oppose boycotting Goya foods.

A boycott is an act of free speech that people can voluntarily choose to engage in for whatever reason. The idea is typically to pressure companies to change from the bottom up, and they only are as successful as the citizens and consumers make them. It's actually the ultimate expression of democracy and capitalism in many ways. It's not at all the same as the head of government telling a company/school/institution to comply with his demands or else. That is an authoritarian threat from the top down. If anything's it's the exact opposite of a boycott.

Good to know you oppose firing principals because they question BLM on social media.

I don't support that actually. Good to know you support strawman arguments.

I also am not aware of what specific incident you are referring to, if you are indeed referring to a real incident (questionable), but typically there is more to these things than what people like you say. If it really is as simple as you say, again I do not support it. But if by "question BLM" you actually mean they said something along the lines of "These n-words need to shut up and fall in line" or something even remotely close to that, that's another story. There are consequences to speech, especially if you're a public official in charge of children. You are naturally going to be scrutinized for what you say publicly. Again, it's not the same.

Those sorts of behaviors are blackmail, extortion, and threats, are they not?

No. For reasons explained above.

I agree with Trump as to what the vast majority of our universities have become.  I'm fine with defunding them lawfully.  After that happens, we can restructure our educational system in such a way as to ensure that our graduates don't come out actively loathing America.

Weird how I didn't graduate actively loathing America. Believe it or not, it's possible to love your country and at the same time recognize it is not literally perfect and can and should be improved to be made even better.

Loving your country is not the same as loving the president and agreeing with him or the government unquestioningly either.

"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." -- Benjamin Franklin

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” -- Theodore Roosevelt

It really disturbs me that you seem to want to turn universities, which are meant to be places for free and open intellectual challenge and stimulation, into essentially government re-education camps. I agree that some campus activists are going against the spirit of university education when they call for things like "safe spaces" and banning books or speakers and such. But number one that's not the professors or the universities themselves doing that, and number two the solution is not to turn universities into censored safe spaces for the other side.

I don't know, just doesn't sound like a very American idea to me at all. More Chinese or Soviet Russian.

Couple that with your opposition to the American ideals of democracy and capitalism as expressed by boycotts, and are you sure you don't loathe America?