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Call for guest posts: #TeachingPrimaryCFM
Sunday school class, Manzanar Relocation Center, California / photograph by Ansel Adams. Pity the poor Primary teachers. I mean, the new schedule is good for them in many ways: they only have to keep...
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Soon We Can No Longer Meet in Public
About a month ago, during church, I got a text from my wife: I was curious why they were talking about taxing religious people in Gospel Principles, but figured I could ask her after church. It...
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The Church Is Going to Pay More In Taxes
Photo by Ken Lund. CC BY-SA 2.0 In 1972, the church opened its new Church Office Building at 50 East North Temple Street. The 28-story building, built by Christiansen and Clyde Construction Company for...
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Explainer: Utah Stealthily Raised State Income Taxes
At the intersection of Mormons and tax policy? This article is pure #BrunsonBait. Paging professor @smbrnsnhttps://t.co/rJ29KNG4p8 — Sheldon Gilbert (@sheldongilbert) February 20, 2019 This morning, I...
View Article#MutualNight: Lomax, Smith, and Black History Month
(Quick reminder: if you’re curious why I’m writing about music on a Mormon blog, this post will summarize what #MutualNight posts are.) Confession: I’ve been putting off writing this post for a long...
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Happy Pączki Day!
Photo by Magic Madzik. CC BY 2.0 Today is Fat Tuesday (or Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras). Today marks the last day of the Carnival season and the day before Ash Wednesday kicks off Lent. Unfortunately,...
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New Zealand, Missionaries, and Inland Revenue
Photo by Saaby. CC BY-SA 2.5 Effective January 1, 1991, the church equalized the cost of missionary service. Before, a missionary had to pay the actual costs of his or her mission.[fn1] Now, a...
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The Parsonage Allowance is a Go
Old Dutch Parsonage, Sommerville, NJ. By Zeete. CC BY-SA 4.0 On October 24, 2018, the Seventh Circuit heard an appeal in Gaylor v. Mnuchin, the parsonage allowance case. I’ve written several times...
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Come Listen to a Blogger’s Voice (About Taxes and Religion and Stuff)
On Friday, I sat down in a law school conference room with two of my students. They’d set up a pretty impressive array of microphones and mixers and a laptop, and pushed aside the Redweld folders that,...
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#taxday 2019: Henry P. Richards and Hawaiian Personal Taxes
Henry P. Richards, public domain. Today is April 15, which means it’s Tax Day! And, as always, on Tax Day, I wanted to bring you a story of Mormonism and taxes.[fn1] I didn’t have anything particular...
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The Satanic Temple: Now a Church!
Nineteenth Century Baphomet Illustration. Public Domain Maybe you heard (or maybe you didn’t): the IRS recently recognized the Satanic Temple as a tax-exempt church. Before you react to the news, that...
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Explainer: Tax-Exempt Salt Lake Tribune
Photo by Cool Hand Luke. CC BY-SA 3.0 Yesterday, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that the Salt Lake Tribune has been in serious discussions about becoming a tax-exempt newspaper.[fn1] This is kind of a...
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Who Wears a Bow Tie? A Completely Unscientific Internet Poll.
Hey! Its me! In a bow tie! For Father’s Day about two years ago, my wife and kids gave me a couple bow ties. I proceeded to not wear them for several months, largely because I never remembered during...
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#BCCSundaySchool2019: “The Son of Man Shall Come”
Readings Joseph Smith-Matthew 1; Matthew 25; Mark 12-13; Luke 21. A Preliminary Note I’ve tried to provide some context and some analysis of a couple aspects of the reading for this week. I haven’t...
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Civic Process Specialists: Some Thoughts
Church and state – No Union upon any terms / Th. Nast. Harper’s weekly, v. 15, no. 739 (1871 Feb. 25), p. 172. Public domain. A couple weeks ago, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that the church told...
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King Brigham! (Also, Dogs)
A couple taxable nuisances. Photo by ipet photo on Unsplash Last week, for various reasons that involve research and things, I fell down the rabbit hole of nineteenth-century dog taxes in the U.S. I...
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The Tax Roots of OD2(?)
It’s become an article of faith in some circles that the end of the racial temple and priesthood ban was motivated, at least in part, by the specter of the church losing its tax-exempt status. And...
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Heatwave!
Photo by Jarosław Kwoczała on Unsplash Saturday I biked over to Dusty Groove, a local record store. Why? Because Dusty Groove was having its once-in-an-occasional record sale, with dozens of boxes of...
View ArticleOn Satan’s Plan, Tax Edition
A couple days ago, I got a message from a friend, asking how I respond to people who claim that taxes are Satan’s plan. Honestly, my instinct would be to respond, “That’s stupid,” block the person on...
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Russian Taxes: A Bleg
Readers know that I’m interested in basically anything that has to do with the church and taxation. And the other day, I was looking at the Church History Library catalog and came across some...
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