RICHMOND, Va., May 18 (UPI) — Some people recently laid-off from religious institutions in Virginia said they were shocked to find the state does not offer them unemployment benefits.
Carol Bronson, who was laid off from her secretarial job at Temple Emanuel synagogue in Virginia Beach, said she was told her unemployment claim was denied because the tax exemptions for religious organizations under Virginia law include an exemption from paying unemployment taxes, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Monday.
“I had no idea that there would not be any benefits for me after leaving my job,” she said.
Rabbi Howard Mandell of Temple Emanuel said the synagogue was unaware of the Virginia tax law at the time of the layoff.
Jane Dembert, who worked for 17 years at the Christ and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Norfolk, most recently as director of communications, said she was also surprised to have her unemployment claim denied after she was laid-off earlier this year.
Coleman Walsh, chief administrative law judge with the state employment commission, said most people he has spoken to were unaware that faith-based groups are exempt from unemployment taxes.
The Catholic Diocese of Richmond has a voluntary self-insurance arrangement with the state that allows laid-off workers to file for unemployment. If the claim is accepted, the state bills the diocese for the amount of the benefits collected by the recipient.
Soooo they don’t pay into the unemployment during their entire duration of their employment, and thus are surprised when they aren’t eligible for employment?
So are drug dealers going to be surprised when their unemployment claims get rejected too?
In most states it isn’t just faith based but not-for-profit in general that can opt for the reimbursement version of unemployment tax.
Jesus H. Christ, ain’t that some shit! I guess their church wasn’t scamming enough people.
As Nelson would say, Ha Ha!
#3 don’t worry. A sucker is born every sec.
Well God will provide.
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It’s the same in California too. I say we should just take away tax exempt status from those that purvay pious ponitfication!
Don’t worry, god will take care of you.
Perhaps they have grounds for a suit against the church for hiring them under misleading conditions. This could keep some lawyers busy and out of the way of the productive part of the economy.
Exempt from the tax; exempt from the benefit. This makes perfect sense. God will provide, no? Oh. No. I guess not.
Of course, one obvious fix is to remove the tax exemption for religious institutions. I’ve never understood how that violated freedom of religion in the first place.
I don’t see that paying taxes infringes on my freedom. Why does it infringe on the freedom of religious institutions?
Oh well. It’s mostly an SEP to me, thus not something I feel strongly about … until the televangelists start making millions, living like kings, and not paying taxes.
Exempt from the tax; exempt from the benefit. This makes perfect sense. God will provide, no? Oh. No. I guess not.
Of course, one obvious fix is to remove the tax exemption for religious institutions. I’ve never understood how that violated freedom of religion in the first place.
I don’t see that paying taxes infringes on my freedom. Why does it infringe on the freedom of religious institutions?
Oh well. It’s mostly an SEP (http://tinyurl.com/5yemd5) to me, thus not something I feel strongly about … until the televangelists start making millions, living like kings, and not paying taxes.
Don’t worry religious workers! Your reward comes in the afterlife!
As a Pastor working in Canada, I know that we DO pay E.I. (Employment Insurance) to the Ontario Provincial Government. I see it taken off my pay every 2 weeks.
Canadian tax laws are different than American ones I guess. I do know that we have SOME tax exempt status, but not FULL exemptions. We pay half of the Federal G.S.T (Good and Services Tax) and the Full P.S.T. (Provincial Sales Tax) on all the money spent by the church.
We are considered “non-profit” or “not-for-profit” by the government and every ‘not-for-profit” organization (Church, para-church, and social organization) must now submit an audited report to the government every year.
We pay our taxes up here for sure, and that’s cool. God provides.
Unemployment is not a tax. It is an insurance premium paid to the state as a safety net. Solution is to require all employers regardless of tax status to pay for this insurance.
To those rejoicing about people being out of work without unemployment, you suck. People that work for a wage as a secretary or the guy that vacuums the floor in the auditorium should have some safety net when the church has to outsource janitorial services or reduce the number of hours someone is on call at answering the phones.
Most people who give to churches give a percentage of their incomes and when people are laid off the church’s income goes down at a time when the needs to minister to poor people are higher.
Churches have the option of paying unemployment, social security and all that, they’re just not required to. If they don’t, though, then I have no sympathy for their employees who never paid into the system and can’t get anything out of it. You get what you pay for.
It’s true in a lot of parts of the country. I found out the hard way when I was laid off from working at a church body in Missouri. I don’t recall that being mentioned during in-processing.
To those of you who think it’s great that people working for churches can lose their jobs and end up with nothing, you have no soul. Churches employ a whole lot more than just ministers you disagree with. Any profession you see in any other corporate office is likely to also find employment at a church body. I worked in the IT department.
Not only that, many people who work for these organizations accept less money than they could get working elsewhere.
The church body I worked for wastes a lot more money than I would like, but they also give an awful lot of money away, doing things like providing food and medical care to parts of the world where it’s needed, building schools, and stuff like that.
Also, to people who work for churches and other charitable organizations, the recession didn’t start last year. It started sometime in 2000 or 2001. If there was a boom that happened in the mid-2000s, they never saw much of an uptick. Layoffs were an annual event where I worked, but some of us always lived in denial, that it wouldn’t be us this year…
>Solution is to require all employers regardless of tax status to pay for this insurance.
Solution is to tax no one, and let people buy their own private unemployment insurance. You know, what used to happen before welfare and unemployment benefits.
#10 – Actually this is one rare case where I agree with you. Don’t pay the tax, don’t get the benefit funded by the tax.
#17 – If we still had a society believed people have some responsibility to take care of themselves, your’s would also be a solution. But….Obama’s going to have to take care of them along with the rest of us.
#16 – Alfredone – Good…keep Government out of religion.
And keep religion out of politics. Remove all tax exemptions and treat religion for what it is… organized crime.
There is a God!
Shame on the churches for not handling this! This isn’t the first time that church staff got laid off. I find it hard to believe that no one in the organization, not even their accountants, knew that there was no safety net for the unemployed, and thus made no provisions to help them. Organized crime, indeed!
Yeah, What Jägermeister said in #19. And hang any legislator or judicial member who mentions religious beliefs as a reason for the law or judgement being made. Ah, hell. Just hang ’em all, anyway. We got lot’s of rope.
#13, dave,
Uummm, not quite. EI is its own deduction and it DOES NOT go to the Provincial Government.
I am baffled as to why a religious organization does not have to pay taxes and insurance for their employees. I suppose if an employee was injured on the job, they would find out the hard way their employer doesn’t carry Workman’s Compensation Insurance either.
I think this would be religious discrimination.
#23, Mr. Fusion
Ya, your probably right, I don’t know where it actually goes, but I do know that I pay into it and I could dip into it if I needed it.
I really do not know why charities and churches get special tax status.
However, I do know that as a church we do a lot of social work that the government does not do. We run the local food bank, a teen drop-in center, a battered woman’s shelter along with prison and hospital ministries.
I guess the Church gets some tax breaks for doing social work and helping the poorest among us?
Now I can only speak to my situation in Canada (Ontario), but our “church” doesn’t really get tax breaks, other than 50% less G.S.T. and maybe land tax? (maybe).
However, as a minister, I get a special tax exemption called a housing allowance. It allows me to claim up to $10,000 of income as tax free. (I think that is the term).
That’s cool with me, but then again I have a Master’s degree and I make an annual income of only $33,000 a year. So the housing allowance helps, lol.
There would be a few other Tax allowances if I were ordained.
I rally have no idea why the American Church would not have to, or want to, pay taxes for their employees. You guys are really big on the whole separation of church and state down there, is that maybe why? (honest question)
#12 Jägermeister wrote, “Don’t worry religious workers! Your reward comes in the afterlife!”
And the good news is, their reward will also be untaxed. Those lucky believers! Heaven has been declared an eternal tax haven, although unpaid military service in God’s army may be required.
I hate to point out the obvious, but if she was laid off from a Synagog, taking up a collection on Sunday wouldn’t yield a lot.
# 12 johnrudy,
No offense to me. Those are good suggestions. I especially like c.
I think we all may be missing the really good news in this. While I’m sorry for those who were laid off without unemployment insurance, I can’t help but be happy about this important issue.
For religious institutions to be laying people off, religion must finally be in decline!!
Yay!!!
Virginia is the only state with that law?
I thought ALL states provide tax exemption for this class of pyramid scheme.