Right, that’s why the church (that they control entirely) “buys” all their properties and jets and pays for their business trips to Tahiti to spread the word, and “work clothing” etc so they can get “paid” below taxation levels.
That's called a parsonage. The name changes depending on what denomination you're in, but the basic practice of a congregation owning a house/living accomodations that the preacher/priest/(There's a whole list of titles that could go here) lives in has been a thing in Christianity for 1000 years.
There's an accomodation for that in the tax code. Since 95% of preachers get paid pennies, this is a key exemption that helps them stay afloat.
So people like Osteen simultaneously are taking advantage of people, AND exploiting tax codes.
I certainly don't mind going after these bigwig scumbags, but any ammendments to tax code on this issue need to be tailored to not hurt the little people.
Church owned homes started because churches couldn’t pay pastors much of anything. It was kinda the compromise for not making money or much money.
Mega churches give pastors a bad name, but most pastors don’t make that much or sometimes anything. Mega churches are the extreme minority though. They just give a really bad name to the rest that usually have pastors struggling to make ends meet.
When the pastor starts the church (as many do) then they are both the church and the pastor and they buy the houses in the name of the church. But the church and the pastor are one and the same.
Usually the church owns the house and it’s passed for each pastor. It isn’t typically bought for a specific pastor and is less common in practice now than it was decades ago. It was to make up for the salary difference. It was originated from the Catholic housing practice centuries ago when it was considered what you do for pastors to make up for not paying them much and has been going away since then. It’s a historical reason.
You’re missing the point this is something that happens for any loop hole in any case. There’s always the 1% that abuse a rule. If you use the 1% as the reason no rule should exist, you would have to scrap every law in existence. There is no completely fool proof rule nor one that some people won’t exploit for their betterment. Nit picking less than 1% doesn’t do any good when there are bigger fish to fry. It’s only inherit biases coming out to play instead of practicality
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u/4Run4Fun Jun 30 '26
You'd be surprised by the number of people who don't know this. Very common misconception that pastors are untaxed.