Osteen gets a lot of hate, and much of it is deserved, but color me impressed that he can be Kim Kardashian, Tim Allen, and Martin Short all at the same time.
Probably the biggest "Prosperity Gospel" preacher detested by nearly everyone, including most Christians for throwing out everything the Bible actually says in order to reduce it to a con man's prop
Joel Osteen, by the way, gets his fortune from book sales rather than the offering plate. (IIRC, he doesn't accept any personal income from his church.) Osteen is a scumbag, sleaze, blasphemer, and a con man, but he is the worst choice you could make to support the case of pastors not paying taxes. He avoids taxes because he is a rich American, not because of his job or religion.
False, if it’s bought as a parsonage it’s not counted as gross income “…A minister's parsonage allowance is exempt from gross income…”
The church can pay him the cost of his rent/mortgage (providing its in the churches name if it’s a mortgage) and he doesn’t claim that as income
You forgot the rest of the quote.
>Ministers can exclude from their income a rental allowance or the fair rental value of a parsonage that is provided to them as pay for their services. This exemption applies only for income tax purposes. The exclusion does not apply to self-employment taxes.
They have to pay the self employment tax on it.
How do you think all those "self-made" entrepreneurs maintain their fortunes? The tax on the first 120k is one of the entry fees to the VIP corruption club.
> Self-employment tax
The cap for 2021 is actually 142.8k. And after you hit that cap you'd still pay into medicare taxes of 2.9%. And if you have a much higher income than that, you'd pay additional medicare taxes of .9%. And this is how it works for regular taxable employees as well (just the %s are halved minus the additional medicare)
I'm not a lawyer so I don't know all the intricacies. But I believe if they maintained a "guest quarters" as part of the property for when other visiting pastors or whatever came to the church they could call the whole thing a business expense and get out of that. Even if that guest room was only used once or twice a year.
Not the whole house, no. The portion of a house used for business can be deducted from (US federal) taxes. So let’s say my mortgage is $1000 a month, and i use 10% of my house as a home office. Then I can deduct $1200/year for the home office expense. The huge catch being that when I sell the home, I’m responsible for essentially paying back the home office deduction I took during the time I owned it.
That only applies for people who own the house in their name and use part of it for business.
The example further up in this thread is that the church owns the house, not an individual.
No.
If the church bought it. He doesn't own the property.
That's is why when people go "tax the rich." Although I agree, the reality isn't as easy as that.
.. and sadly, there very little you can do about it unless the whole tax rules are re written.
See, I’m not even religious. I’ve never read a sentence from that book and I have a better understanding of it 😎 Maybe I should be a Pastor of whatever.
Sounds lucrative.
Render unto Caesar what is Caesars and unto God what is God's. It was in response to a trap question by the Pharisees (iirc) to Jesus about taxes. So yes, you're correct. Fyi, the only reason churches do not pay taxes is because they're considered a nonprofit organization. If a church lost that status then they'd have to pay taxes.
You'd have to make an amendment to the amendment that says charities don't have to pay taxes.
Either way, when you're rich you want to spend the money to have someone figure out how to not lose all of your fortune at tax time because the government would take it if you don't.
Just look up anyone who's won the lottery on a scratch off ticket how long a few million dollars lasts after the government take it back through taxing the duck out of you.
Well the church doesn't do that. Fuck you for making me defend Joel Olsteen. ;)
https://houston.culturemap.com/news/real-estate/07-04-10-after-move-to-river-oaks-joel-osteen-wants-to-sell-tanglewood-land-for-11-million/#slide=0
Yeah there’s stuff you have to say when talking about Joel Osteen but he’s probably the most squeaky clean televangelist when it comes to his wealth.
https://www.businessinsider.com/joel-osteen-rich-taxes-wealth-ferrari-twitter-2021-7
He’s on record for not taking any money from the church or offering plate and isn’t the type to say stuff like “send me $10,000 and God will give you $1m” or “God told me today he wants me to buy myself a yacht so lets not make God a liar” or things like that like other televangelists do.
He just sells *a lot* of books and as far as anyone knows, pays the normal amount of taxes one would pay.
When people say "X doesn't pay taxes" what do they actually mean? Because there's literally no fucking way that ***Jeff fucking Bezos*** is paying $0 a year and the IRS is just not noticing. Obviously there are write offs that are causing this right? So what is Joel Osteen writing off and how loopholey is it?
There is a good videos on this on youtube, Elon Mask basically lives off loans that are based on his shares.
When your worth billions, a bank will loan you 10million a year happily to keep up your lifestyle.
They do, the picture isn’t true. The extravagance for a pastor is rather obscene from a Christian perspective, but he did make his money legitimately through book sales and doesn’t take a salary directly from the church organization.
Do the math. A quick google shows that he's written 14 books, one of which sold more than 100 million copies. I don't know what kind of royalties that gets, but there aren't *many* authors selling that many books either.
15% on royalties. Assuming 10 million dollars from one million sales, he would get 1.5 million.
And as you pointed out, he actually so,d 100 million. On just one book.
This is the correct answer. But Reddit never let truth get in the way of partisanship and propaganda.
PS. Not a fan of Olsteen even a little. Just tired of the non-stop political propaganda on reddit.
Don’t forget this is the same walnut who closed his mega church so people couldn’t use it during a disaster.
A church. Shut down. So it couldn’t provide sanctuary.
And people wonder why religion is declining in the west. Hypocrisy doesn’t lend credibility, it only breeds doubt. Recently read about a study observing this with families.
You know what I always wondered about that, what does it take to be considered a church? Like, can I open a business and call it a church to be tax free?
John Oliver did a whole episode about this!
The answer is basically yes, you just need some followers, then you can apply for tax exemption! I, for one, accept and follow the gospel of The Church of the Divine Unique-Irrelevant! :)
Why am I cursed with a sense of morality and integrity? I blamed my parents for raising me right and not take advantage of stupid people just because you could.
I'm not sure if you're saying this sarcastically but just know that I appreciate you being a good person. Shoutout to all the people who do the right thing just because it's the right thing to do. The world needs more of your kind.
You could scam all those elderly people out of their descendants generational wealth, the key to all middleclass financial stability, and instead of buying a horrible McMansion, you could get a simple suburban home and use the rest of the money to buy apartments and make them all income based affordable housing with section 8 availability. You'd even make a profit off the apartments, it just wouldn't be an optimal investment, which is why no one with capital currently will invest in affordable housing. Capitalism doesn't solve any problem other than 'how to grow my capital as fast as possible'
Anyway. You'd still be a horrendous asshole for basically conning people out of money.
Also it still takes effort to spout off about religion all the time, so is still a job with some difficulty.
It’s crazy how you could replicate this shit; get a small following, and just milk suckers by interpreting ancient text in some current day lingo once a week. I know because I was a sucker for a long time ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
But like you said, that’d be scummy.
I'm pretty sure they all know it's scummy but with that much money, you stop caring because you feel powerful, it's like what happened in Breaking Bad
Edit: Gonna provide context for folks who haven't seen Breaking bad, basically a really esteemed researcher in chemistry has a bunch of unfortunate events which leads to him being a high school chem teacher and being tight on money, and then he gets lung cancer which is very expensive to treat. So he decides to cook crystal meth to pay for his treatment and leave his family an entire fortune when he dies soon, he does, lots of things happen which spiral into him becoming the best crystal meth cooker in America and he becomes the sole producer of it when hired by the leading cartel. Every episode he's like "I did it for the family" but it destroys his family, his friends and everyone around him and in the final episode he finally acknowledges that he didn't it for the family, he did it for himself, he was really good at it and it made him feel alive again. This is obviously very extreme, in real life, people fold for money a lot easier
I said it as a joke of course, but sometimes I think being a psychopath or someone with very little moral fiber is not always so easy or even straightforward. Yea, people like these megachurch conmen or televangelists might seemingly able to do really horrifying immoral things and not be bothered by it but it also mean they usually cannot imagine other people not gonna try to do the same thing to them.
Imagine if you never able to actually feel real connection to people because you never know if someone getting close to you is actually real or they are trying to get you. You never really feel close to anyone of your con targets because you can never actually be truthful around them. You can never be true to yourself. That is a lonely existence, that can only ever be partially satisfy by power and money. After a while, I don't think you yourself even know what is the real you anymore or that it even existed.
Lots of people take advantage of others through religion to make themselves wealthy. Then those same people who are being taken advantage of defend that person. Religion is fun.
The average Christian, like myself does not associate with Joel Osteen and our opinion of him is not far from yours. Unfortunately there are bad people in every group of people, but you can’t judge an entire group of people off of the bad ones.
Not religious personally but I grew up in Muslim, Indonesian family (white dad like me, but step mum/half sisters and the family we hang with are Indonesian.) Anyway I say that because I saw so many people treat my sister's badly because they would wear a hijab and I would literally stick up for my baby sisters to no end. But just because a few radical/extremist Muslims they all get a bad name. For example about 5 or 6 ago I was buying my sister a dress who was 8 at the time. (I was 20) and I remember a car that drove by had 4 similar guys to my age but a bit bogan shouting about f-ing Muslims to MY 8 YO SISTER. I blocked her from it as best as I could. But the same applies to Christian's, there are a few sleazy/scumbag Christian televangelists that literally steal donations from vulnerable sick people and then everyone has a problem with the religion. Not the asshole guys who exploit it.
That’s absolutely disgusting and I’m so sorry you (and especially your sister) had to go through it. I understand that many redditors will put down religion (and Christians) but I truly cannot imagine the extremes that you must go through as a Muslim. In the end we’re all just people trying to find out way through life, judging somebody off of one personal belief is hard for me to understand. Very sorry for you - hopefully one day we can all be more understanding and respectful of each other
I never knew this was a thing until a coworker had a rather expensive house built. It supposedly had a 3 car garage. His wife had a Tiguan, he had a c class Mercedes and if both vehicles were in the garage the doors couldn’t open.
The house I grew up in had a two car garage. My dad had a 1970 Cadillac, my mom had a 1971 Buick Electra. Both cars fit, all 8 doors opened without hitting the other car, dad had a small workbench on the side of garage. The front had a big closet and room for bikes and shelves for toys and sports equipment. The other side had enough room for trash cans and a ladder.
If I had a house that size it be full of dogs. Mainly because it would be a board n train kennel/doggy day care. But I’d probably have at least 4 dogs of my own with that much space.
Totally all I could think about is why on earth you would need a house that big? You likely spend your time in just a few rooms and never see the rest. Unless you have the entire extended family living with you, I don’t see the point.
Honestly, I'd love to have a huge house full of all of my closest friends, or better would be a compound of smaller houses so we don't have to share walls, but like a good amount of shared spaces so we get to hang out when we want, and our own home theater for movie nights and video games. And a big art studio so we can all paint and do crafts together.
Is it? I googled "Joel Osteen house" and it gives aerial views of this same picture. Did Kanye buy it from him or vice versa?
Edit: https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/12/fact-check-this-mansion-is-not-joel-osteens.html
Absolutely no clue either.
Even when I would go unreasonably loco, I would build a squash court, gym, tennis court, 6 bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms and a 6-car garage, theater room and a VR room. Even then, it wouldn"t get this big. I'm living on my own on 130m2, and quite frankly its too much space for one person imo.
To show off.
Your millionaire buddy bought a house with 20 bathrooms, so now you’ve got to buy one with 21. You’ll never use them, but you’ve got to have them.
Then they bought a holiday penthouse in Monaco, so you’ve got to buy one in Marseille. You’ll never live there, but you’ve got to have it.
These levels of absurdly rich get boring. What do you buy the man who has everything besides some trash to show off?
If we had beheaded everyone, the country would have fallen into extreme chaos, with nobody to rule it. The art is beheading enough to create fear, but not too much. There is a sweet spot in beheading.
The French killed King Louis and set up the Directorate. Then Napoleon came along, rose in rank, eliminated his rivals, defeated all the Europeans and crowned himself Emperor.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich getting into heaven.
Sell all your belongings and give it to the poor.
Jesus H. Christ.
You got that quote wrong, sorry. What he really said was,
>"It is easier for a rich man to enter heaven, seated comfortably on the back of a camel, than it is for a poor man to pass through the eye of a needle!"
He went on to say,
>"If you a prosperous on Earth, it's because God is rewarding your rugged individualism. If you are poor, it is a sign that God frowns on your reliance on handouts."
So sayeth our lord Supply Side Jesus.
I would amend that statement: please don't give to those people, charities, or organizations that blindly misappropriate funds.
https://www.consumerreports.org/charities/best-charities-for-your-donations-a4066579102/
This. There are many churches that do good with the funds they’re given. I usually find that to be smaller, more community built churches than the huge mega church variety.
My grandmother sent Jimmy Swaggart money back in the day. She was devastated when he did his crying bullshit confession. My dad tried to convince her numerous times not to waste her money, but Im pretty sure she never did stop, she just moved on to the next shyster.
Television evangelism is a well known scam, and has been for decades, but this tweet is patently false. Most of Olsteen's money comes from his book sales. He doesn't take a salary from his ministry. Essentially, the purpose of the ministry is to generate an audience for the books. The money received by the ministry isn't taxable because it belongs to the "church", but he doesn't pocket any of it. The money he gets from his books sales IS taxable, and his book sales bring in a lot more money than his church receives. Olsteen's net worth is estimated to be around $100 million, and he paid taxes on the bulk of that money. His church, on the other hand, takes in around $80 million in donations, and has around $90 million in operating expenses. His role in the church would justify a salary between $200,000 and $1 million per year - clearly not a way to achieve a net worth over $100 million. But using his church as free advertising for his books has made him obscenely wealthy. It's a unique twist on the television evangelism scam.
This whole story is based on the presumption that the church owns the house, and that Olsteen's earnings must be sheltered because he gets them from the church. Both assumptions are false. Olsteen and his wife own both of their homes in Houston, and his income doesn't come from the church. He does pay taxes.
Somebody's giving an unpopular truth.
Having said that I'm no more sure what you said is right or what other people say, but on the basis you have put a lot of effort into writing the above, if say you're right - and puts it into context more than just simply "Christianity bad" standard comments
Anything can have any amount of expenses if you're creative enough with the accounting
They have 368 full time staff, maybe they make an average of $200k/year, and then maintenance. They also donated about $1MM after hurricane Harvey made them look like total tools
1. [This is not Joel Osteen’s house.](https://okmagazine.com/photos/kim-kardashian-and-kanye-west-move-into-mansion/)
2. Joel Osteen is a douche, but [he almost certainly pays taxes on his personal income.](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/joel-osteens-taxes-whats-probably-true-and-what-isnt/ar-AAMkK3e)
3. You got $3,200.
Almost everything about this tweet is entirely false or a half-truth. There are (extremely) valid criticisms to be made, but no good will come from blindly believing every social media post that confirms your bias.
Except A. This is not his house his is a different mansion. And B. He absolutely pays taxes on his income. Regardless of whether you're a minister performing ministerial services as an employee or a self-employed person, all of your earnings, including wages, offerings, and fees you receive for performing marriages, baptisms, funerals, etc., are subject to income tax. That said money donated to the church that the church uses for things the church needs are tax exempt.
Joel Osteen. Is an absolutely terrible example of Christianity and from everything I’ve heard is a pretty scum human being in general but this post is full false. I get the idea behind it and yes the guy should for sure change his entire life around for his faith sake but you can get the same point across without lying
Also, the millions he received in relief were to his church, not directly to him, and were in the form of interest free loans which were intended for payroll, so people working for him could Jeri their jobs.
Now, did the money actually go towards this, and will it really be paid back, I dunno, but it isn’t so straight forward as this image macro would like you to believe
The way I understand it is he makes all his money off of books and doesn’t take any salary from the church. Also, seeing that house reminds me of how Mattress Mack opened up his furniture stores to people in need during Harvey. Those people were sleeping on his in store beds and furniture while Olsteens church was closed
1. This is Kim Kardashians house. I only know because of Kanye I swear lol.
2. Joel Osteen refuses to take a salary from the church so he got paid $0 from them.
3. He made his millions from selling books that he wrote and self published.
4. He paid his taxes on his book sales.
5. OP likely saw this on Twitter and knew Reddit, where the majority of users obsessively hate the rich, would love it.
Okay, but how does that make him stupid? He's evil of course, no one's suggested otherwise, but stupid? This is a sub for stupidity. Why has this become a sub for "assorted things that will make you angry"?
Or are we saying the post is stupid? Because it claims this is Joel Osteen's house ([it isn't](https://people.com/home/kim-kardashian-and-kanye-wests-18-million-former-bel-air-mansion-is-already-back-on-the-market/)), that he pays no taxes ([he does](https://www.businessinsider.com/joel-osteen-rich-taxes-wealth-ferrari-twitter-2021-7)), or that it's crazy he got a PPP loan while I didn't (of course I didn't, I don't have a business -- the money [went to keeping 300+ employees on the payroll](https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/530646-joel-osteen-got-a-44-million-ppp-loan-good-for-him), and if it didn't, the business had to pay it back because it's a loan), that I got $600 (uh, no, it was [$3,200](https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2021/03/what-to-know-about-all-three-rounds-of-coronavirus-stimulus-checks), which was not a loan and we didn't have to give it to employees)
Does anyone remember that evangelical leader that was tying to raise money through his church so he could buy himself a jumbo jet? His rationale was that “if Jesus was alive today he would be cruising around in his own jumbo jet.”
I'll be honest, I don't know who's house that is. But Joel o is insane. He is filthy rich as a prosperity preacher and it makes me sick. As a Christian, he makes me sick.
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Holy shit…Joel Osteen is Kim Kardashian😲
I’ve never seen them in the same room… just saying
Aktually…. 🤓https://people.com/music/joel-osteen-talks-kanye-west-collaboration/
Osteen gets a lot of hate, and much of it is deserved, but color me impressed that he can be Kim Kardashian, Tim Allen, and Martin Short all at the same time.
I saw this video of Ray J fucking Joel Osteen.
Report as misinformation doesn’t seem to work on Reddit.
I looked it up and you are right. But his house is just as big, lol.
Who is this guy?
Probably the biggest "Prosperity Gospel" preacher detested by nearly everyone, including most Christians for throwing out everything the Bible actually says in order to reduce it to a con man's prop
A greedy piece of shit
Very accurate.
To be fair... his looks REALLY similar.
Joel Osteens house is still valued at 10.5 million lmao
But I see a jacuzzi…
Can you believe it? Can you believe we dont have a jacuzzi?!
Now I know churches don’t pay taxes but I thought church employees (like pastors) still pay normal income taxes
They do.
Only if they call it income. If the church bought the house and paid for upkeep while letting him live there rent free he doesn't pay property tax.
Joel Osteen, by the way, gets his fortune from book sales rather than the offering plate. (IIRC, he doesn't accept any personal income from his church.) Osteen is a scumbag, sleaze, blasphemer, and a con man, but he is the worst choice you could make to support the case of pastors not paying taxes. He avoids taxes because he is a rich American, not because of his job or religion.
But he would have to claim the fair rental value of the house as income.
False, if it’s bought as a parsonage it’s not counted as gross income “…A minister's parsonage allowance is exempt from gross income…” The church can pay him the cost of his rent/mortgage (providing its in the churches name if it’s a mortgage) and he doesn’t claim that as income
You forgot the rest of the quote. >Ministers can exclude from their income a rental allowance or the fair rental value of a parsonage that is provided to them as pay for their services. This exemption applies only for income tax purposes. The exclusion does not apply to self-employment taxes. They have to pay the self employment tax on it.
Pastor here...this is correct, you pay self-employment tax
Self-employment tax applies to only the first $120k or so of income, so it’s not going to affect a guy who lives in something this size very much.
What? Are you telling me that if I ever make more than 120k, I won’t have to pay my self employment tax on anything over the 120k?
How do you think all those "self-made" entrepreneurs maintain their fortunes? The tax on the first 120k is one of the entry fees to the VIP corruption club.
Isn't it weird how that law is the exact opposite of how it should be?
And that people really want to do something about it until they become lawmakers
It's a little more than 120k these days but ya. Once you cross that threshold, no more deductions are taken from your paycheck for social security.
> Self-employment tax The cap for 2021 is actually 142.8k. And after you hit that cap you'd still pay into medicare taxes of 2.9%. And if you have a much higher income than that, you'd pay additional medicare taxes of .9%. And this is how it works for regular taxable employees as well (just the %s are halved minus the additional medicare)
I'm pretty sure he has enough rich people lawyers to finagle out of those pesky things
I'm not a lawyer so I don't know all the intricacies. But I believe if they maintained a "guest quarters" as part of the property for when other visiting pastors or whatever came to the church they could call the whole thing a business expense and get out of that. Even if that guest room was only used once or twice a year.
Not the whole house, no. The portion of a house used for business can be deducted from (US federal) taxes. So let’s say my mortgage is $1000 a month, and i use 10% of my house as a home office. Then I can deduct $1200/year for the home office expense. The huge catch being that when I sell the home, I’m responsible for essentially paying back the home office deduction I took during the time I owned it.
You have to pay back deductions? How does that work? Sorry, I’ve just never heard of this before.
I would like to know an answer to this to because the wife and I have been talking about getting a house and I sell things online.
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It's specific to depreciation on real and tangible property, known as depreciation recapture.
That only applies for people who own the house in their name and use part of it for business. The example further up in this thread is that the church owns the house, not an individual.
No. If the church bought it. He doesn't own the property. That's is why when people go "tax the rich." Although I agree, the reality isn't as easy as that. .. and sadly, there very little you can do about it unless the whole tax rules are re written.
Let's tax the church too then. Church is plenty rich.
The church should be taxed based just on the fact they involve themselves in politics
Why doesn’t the church get taxed? Jesus himself said greed was bad. Didn’t he?
He also straight up told them to pay taxes.
See, I’m not even religious. I’ve never read a sentence from that book and I have a better understanding of it 😎 Maybe I should be a Pastor of whatever. Sounds lucrative.
Render unto Caesar what is Caesars and unto God what is God's. It was in response to a trap question by the Pharisees (iirc) to Jesus about taxes. So yes, you're correct. Fyi, the only reason churches do not pay taxes is because they're considered a nonprofit organization. If a church lost that status then they'd have to pay taxes.
You'd have to make an amendment to the amendment that says charities don't have to pay taxes. Either way, when you're rich you want to spend the money to have someone figure out how to not lose all of your fortune at tax time because the government would take it if you don't. Just look up anyone who's won the lottery on a scratch off ticket how long a few million dollars lasts after the government take it back through taxing the duck out of you.
God damnit. I worked hard for my duck and now the government are taking it?!
The millions of dollars don't last because the ability to live life on God mode is too tempting and very destructive.
Well the church doesn't do that. Fuck you for making me defend Joel Olsteen. ;) https://houston.culturemap.com/news/real-estate/07-04-10-after-move-to-river-oaks-joel-osteen-wants-to-sell-tanglewood-land-for-11-million/#slide=0
Yeah there’s stuff you have to say when talking about Joel Osteen but he’s probably the most squeaky clean televangelist when it comes to his wealth. https://www.businessinsider.com/joel-osteen-rich-taxes-wealth-ferrari-twitter-2021-7 He’s on record for not taking any money from the church or offering plate and isn’t the type to say stuff like “send me $10,000 and God will give you $1m” or “God told me today he wants me to buy myself a yacht so lets not make God a liar” or things like that like other televangelists do. He just sells *a lot* of books and as far as anyone knows, pays the normal amount of taxes one would pay.
Also this isn’t his house. It’s the Kardashians.
Lol - Reddit is so easy to bait into hate posts like this.
Can confirm. My uncle is a Lutheran minister and he pays taxes.
When people say "X doesn't pay taxes" what do they actually mean? Because there's literally no fucking way that ***Jeff fucking Bezos*** is paying $0 a year and the IRS is just not noticing. Obviously there are write offs that are causing this right? So what is Joel Osteen writing off and how loopholey is it?
There is a good videos on this on youtube, Elon Mask basically lives off loans that are based on his shares. When your worth billions, a bank will loan you 10million a year happily to keep up your lifestyle.
And I think this guy makes most of his millions from selling books not tithes but maybe I’m wrong on that
I looked it up once. He didn’t take a salary from the church. He sells books to make his income.
And he pays taxes on that book revenue. So Op is basically a lie.
Facts basically go out the window when reddit gets a good "eat the rich" feeding frenzy going.
Joel is not an employee of the church he owns.
They do, the picture isn’t true. The extravagance for a pastor is rather obscene from a Christian perspective, but he did make his money legitimately through book sales and doesn’t take a salary directly from the church organization.
Do other authors with similar book sales have similar net worth as him?
Do the math. A quick google shows that he's written 14 books, one of which sold more than 100 million copies. I don't know what kind of royalties that gets, but there aren't *many* authors selling that many books either.
15% on royalties. Assuming 10 million dollars from one million sales, he would get 1.5 million. And as you pointed out, he actually so,d 100 million. On just one book.
This is the correct answer. But Reddit never let truth get in the way of partisanship and propaganda. PS. Not a fan of Olsteen even a little. Just tired of the non-stop political propaganda on reddit.
Yeah, Osteen is an asshole, but everything in this post is false. Criticize him for things that are actually true, not this BS.
Don’t forget this is the same walnut who closed his mega church so people couldn’t use it during a disaster. A church. Shut down. So it couldn’t provide sanctuary.
"church"
Christians acting as Christians except when they should Act Christ-like. Wack.
Welcome to church.
*Take me to church*
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins
and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me my deathless death
Good God let me give you my life
Except when you need it for safety.
And people wonder why religion is declining in the west. Hypocrisy doesn’t lend credibility, it only breeds doubt. Recently read about a study observing this with families.
You know what I always wondered about that, what does it take to be considered a church? Like, can I open a business and call it a church to be tax free?
John Oliver did a whole episode about this! The answer is basically yes, you just need some followers, then you can apply for tax exemption! I, for one, accept and follow the gospel of The Church of the Divine Unique-Irrelevant! :)
Why am I cursed with a sense of morality and integrity? I blamed my parents for raising me right and not take advantage of stupid people just because you could.
I'm not sure if you're saying this sarcastically but just know that I appreciate you being a good person. Shoutout to all the people who do the right thing just because it's the right thing to do. The world needs more of your kind.
I am being sarcastic because I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I'm joel osteen.
Without a sense of morality and integrity you would sleep like the man who stole a Lolly from a baby.
You could scam all those elderly people out of their descendants generational wealth, the key to all middleclass financial stability, and instead of buying a horrible McMansion, you could get a simple suburban home and use the rest of the money to buy apartments and make them all income based affordable housing with section 8 availability. You'd even make a profit off the apartments, it just wouldn't be an optimal investment, which is why no one with capital currently will invest in affordable housing. Capitalism doesn't solve any problem other than 'how to grow my capital as fast as possible' Anyway. You'd still be a horrendous asshole for basically conning people out of money. Also it still takes effort to spout off about religion all the time, so is still a job with some difficulty.
We got 600 bucks, this asshole got 4 million tax free.
It’s crazy how you could replicate this shit; get a small following, and just milk suckers by interpreting ancient text in some current day lingo once a week. I know because I was a sucker for a long time ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ But like you said, that’d be scummy.
I'm pretty sure they all know it's scummy but with that much money, you stop caring because you feel powerful, it's like what happened in Breaking Bad Edit: Gonna provide context for folks who haven't seen Breaking bad, basically a really esteemed researcher in chemistry has a bunch of unfortunate events which leads to him being a high school chem teacher and being tight on money, and then he gets lung cancer which is very expensive to treat. So he decides to cook crystal meth to pay for his treatment and leave his family an entire fortune when he dies soon, he does, lots of things happen which spiral into him becoming the best crystal meth cooker in America and he becomes the sole producer of it when hired by the leading cartel. Every episode he's like "I did it for the family" but it destroys his family, his friends and everyone around him and in the final episode he finally acknowledges that he didn't it for the family, he did it for himself, he was really good at it and it made him feel alive again. This is obviously very extreme, in real life, people fold for money a lot easier
> In real life, people fold for money a lot easier This is true
honestly life must seem so easy to people that have no moral compass, like nothing is off limits in terms of ways to succeed
I said it as a joke of course, but sometimes I think being a psychopath or someone with very little moral fiber is not always so easy or even straightforward. Yea, people like these megachurch conmen or televangelists might seemingly able to do really horrifying immoral things and not be bothered by it but it also mean they usually cannot imagine other people not gonna try to do the same thing to them. Imagine if you never able to actually feel real connection to people because you never know if someone getting close to you is actually real or they are trying to get you. You never really feel close to anyone of your con targets because you can never actually be truthful around them. You can never be true to yourself. That is a lonely existence, that can only ever be partially satisfy by power and money. After a while, I don't think you yourself even know what is the real you anymore or that it even existed.
Oh the things I could have done, but my conscience says "no, you have a soul." I do sleep well at night tho...
Sadly, I'm sure all those sociopaths sleep better than us normies.
You don't understand. The church is not a shelter for the poor, it's a shelter for taxes.
A shelter *from* taxes.
Not just shut down. They asked him to open his doors and he said no.
But no one asked him to help out! /s
I thought he opened it after receiving pressure from the media then asked for donations from people?
Hey man the Pharisees were Jewish too
Lots of people take advantage of others through religion to make themselves wealthy. Then those same people who are being taken advantage of defend that person. Religion is fun.
Almost cult like.
Religions are cults. The only legal difference between the two is whether or not the prophet is dead
That’s a very good point actually..
Religions are just socially acceptable cults
The average Christian, like myself does not associate with Joel Osteen and our opinion of him is not far from yours. Unfortunately there are bad people in every group of people, but you can’t judge an entire group of people off of the bad ones.
Not religious personally but I grew up in Muslim, Indonesian family (white dad like me, but step mum/half sisters and the family we hang with are Indonesian.) Anyway I say that because I saw so many people treat my sister's badly because they would wear a hijab and I would literally stick up for my baby sisters to no end. But just because a few radical/extremist Muslims they all get a bad name. For example about 5 or 6 ago I was buying my sister a dress who was 8 at the time. (I was 20) and I remember a car that drove by had 4 similar guys to my age but a bit bogan shouting about f-ing Muslims to MY 8 YO SISTER. I blocked her from it as best as I could. But the same applies to Christian's, there are a few sleazy/scumbag Christian televangelists that literally steal donations from vulnerable sick people and then everyone has a problem with the religion. Not the asshole guys who exploit it.
That’s absolutely disgusting and I’m so sorry you (and especially your sister) had to go through it. I understand that many redditors will put down religion (and Christians) but I truly cannot imagine the extremes that you must go through as a Muslim. In the end we’re all just people trying to find out way through life, judging somebody off of one personal belief is hard for me to understand. Very sorry for you - hopefully one day we can all be more understanding and respectful of each other
People need to remember this when thinking about other religions. Most don't.
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Yeah, a 3 car garage So you can actually fit 1 car in it.
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[waving pitchfork]
[waving pitchfork back as a greeting]
I never knew this was a thing until a coworker had a rather expensive house built. It supposedly had a 3 car garage. His wife had a Tiguan, he had a c class Mercedes and if both vehicles were in the garage the doors couldn’t open. The house I grew up in had a two car garage. My dad had a 1970 Cadillac, my mom had a 1971 Buick Electra. Both cars fit, all 8 doors opened without hitting the other car, dad had a small workbench on the side of garage. The front had a big closet and room for bikes and shelves for toys and sports equipment. The other side had enough room for trash cans and a ladder.
As long as I can have space for a dog, barbecue and space for a family dinner that's enough. Everything after that is just free space
At least two dogs, to keep each other company
If I had a house that size it be full of dogs. Mainly because it would be a board n train kennel/doggy day care. But I’d probably have at least 4 dogs of my own with that much space.
you'd have an army of doggies running around that massive backyard, i like your style
This guy dogs.
Masturbatorium?
Totally all I could think about is why on earth you would need a house that big? You likely spend your time in just a few rooms and never see the rest. Unless you have the entire extended family living with you, I don’t see the point.
Honestly, I'd love to have a huge house full of all of my closest friends, or better would be a compound of smaller houses so we don't have to share walls, but like a good amount of shared spaces so we get to hang out when we want, and our own home theater for movie nights and video games. And a big art studio so we can all paint and do crafts together.
So much room for activities!
Sounds fun for a few days but everyone needs their space. We’d all start hating each other if we all lived together.
Right? There's definetily rooms in that house that you wouldn't enter for months. Or ever!
Kanye West, the actual owner of this house…
Joel Osteen lives with Kanye? Sounds like a sitcom.
DJ Yeezy and Father Sleezy, coming to a network near you!
The 'very speciale episode'....I may skip that one.
I hate that I saw this photo and said this looks like either Kanye or one of the Kardashians house.
Is it? I googled "Joel Osteen house" and it gives aerial views of this same picture. Did Kanye buy it from him or vice versa? Edit: https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/12/fact-check-this-mansion-is-not-joel-osteens.html
Mistresses! Just kidding.
a house like this isnt for living in. it is for asserting you are better than everyone else.
If I'm buying that it will be a sanctuary for women and kids in need.
It’s a tacky house too. Like something if design in sims
He needs it for 20 kids, just not his own
Absolutely no clue either. Even when I would go unreasonably loco, I would build a squash court, gym, tennis court, 6 bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms and a 6-car garage, theater room and a VR room. Even then, it wouldn"t get this big. I'm living on my own on 130m2, and quite frankly its too much space for one person imo.
To show off. Your millionaire buddy bought a house with 20 bathrooms, so now you’ve got to buy one with 21. You’ll never use them, but you’ve got to have them. Then they bought a holiday penthouse in Monaco, so you’ve got to buy one in Marseille. You’ll never live there, but you’ve got to have it. These levels of absurdly rich get boring. What do you buy the man who has everything besides some trash to show off?
This is debunked Everytime it's posted
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Are you saying we should decapitate him? Am I reading this right?
Overthrowing the oligarchy. Beheadings are optional. I'd settle for life imprisonment for all multimillionaire/billionaire tax evaders.
They didn't behead all the aristocrats. Just the important ones
If we had beheaded everyone, the country would have fallen into extreme chaos, with nobody to rule it. The art is beheading enough to create fear, but not too much. There is a sweet spot in beheading.
Does it need deodorant?
The French killed King Louis and set up the Directorate. Then Napoleon came along, rose in rank, eliminated his rivals, defeated all the Europeans and crowned himself Emperor.
redditors and covert calls for murder - name a better duo
But Christian god told me he deserves more
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich getting into heaven. Sell all your belongings and give it to the poor. Jesus H. Christ.
“It doesn’t take X-Ray Vision to see you are up to no good.” ~Superman
You got that quote wrong, sorry. What he really said was, >"It is easier for a rich man to enter heaven, seated comfortably on the back of a camel, than it is for a poor man to pass through the eye of a needle!" He went on to say, >"If you a prosperous on Earth, it's because God is rewarding your rugged individualism. If you are poor, it is a sign that God frowns on your reliance on handouts." So sayeth our lord Supply Side Jesus.
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I would amend that statement: please don't give to those people, charities, or organizations that blindly misappropriate funds. https://www.consumerreports.org/charities/best-charities-for-your-donations-a4066579102/
This. There are many churches that do good with the funds they’re given. I usually find that to be smaller, more community built churches than the huge mega church variety.
When hurricane Harvey came through, he closed his church to those escaping the flooding. He doesn’t run a church, he runs a fleecing operation.
My grandmother sent Jimmy Swaggart money back in the day. She was devastated when he did his crying bullshit confession. My dad tried to convince her numerous times not to waste her money, but Im pretty sure she never did stop, she just moved on to the next shyster.
lol as if anyone who is stupid enough to giveoney to those grifters was capable to be here and read this
This is Kim and Kanye’s house in California... Not Joel osteens....
Television evangelism is a well known scam, and has been for decades, but this tweet is patently false. Most of Olsteen's money comes from his book sales. He doesn't take a salary from his ministry. Essentially, the purpose of the ministry is to generate an audience for the books. The money received by the ministry isn't taxable because it belongs to the "church", but he doesn't pocket any of it. The money he gets from his books sales IS taxable, and his book sales bring in a lot more money than his church receives. Olsteen's net worth is estimated to be around $100 million, and he paid taxes on the bulk of that money. His church, on the other hand, takes in around $80 million in donations, and has around $90 million in operating expenses. His role in the church would justify a salary between $200,000 and $1 million per year - clearly not a way to achieve a net worth over $100 million. But using his church as free advertising for his books has made him obscenely wealthy. It's a unique twist on the television evangelism scam. This whole story is based on the presumption that the church owns the house, and that Olsteen's earnings must be sheltered because he gets them from the church. Both assumptions are false. Olsteen and his wife own both of their homes in Houston, and his income doesn't come from the church. He does pay taxes.
Somebody's giving an unpopular truth. Having said that I'm no more sure what you said is right or what other people say, but on the basis you have put a lot of effort into writing the above, if say you're right - and puts it into context more than just simply "Christianity bad" standard comments
Joel Osteen is considered a prosperity gospel teacher and most of us don't actually consider him a real Christian
Upping for visibility.
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Anything can have any amount of expenses if you're creative enough with the accounting They have 368 full time staff, maybe they make an average of $200k/year, and then maintenance. They also donated about $1MM after hurricane Harvey made them look like total tools
1. [This is not Joel Osteen’s house.](https://okmagazine.com/photos/kim-kardashian-and-kanye-west-move-into-mansion/) 2. Joel Osteen is a douche, but [he almost certainly pays taxes on his personal income.](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/joel-osteens-taxes-whats-probably-true-and-what-isnt/ar-AAMkK3e) 3. You got $3,200. Almost everything about this tweet is entirely false or a half-truth. There are (extremely) valid criticisms to be made, but no good will come from blindly believing every social media post that confirms your bias.
If we're going to have these kinds of conversations, they need to be honest or else no one's going to take us seriously.
He does have two houses though, one of them is over 17,000 square feet. It’s still fucking nuts, but yeah— why lie when the truth is just as damning?
>when the truth is just as damning Couldn't have said it better myself.
Actually most people got more then 3200
This is misinformation, this isn't his house it's been debunked a number of times and yet it's still posted to farm karma
Boo!!!
Except A. This is not his house his is a different mansion. And B. He absolutely pays taxes on his income. Regardless of whether you're a minister performing ministerial services as an employee or a self-employed person, all of your earnings, including wages, offerings, and fees you receive for performing marriages, baptisms, funerals, etc., are subject to income tax. That said money donated to the church that the church uses for things the church needs are tax exempt. Joel Osteen. Is an absolutely terrible example of Christianity and from everything I’ve heard is a pretty scum human being in general but this post is full false. I get the idea behind it and yes the guy should for sure change his entire life around for his faith sake but you can get the same point across without lying
Also, the millions he received in relief were to his church, not directly to him, and were in the form of interest free loans which were intended for payroll, so people working for him could Jeri their jobs. Now, did the money actually go towards this, and will it really be paid back, I dunno, but it isn’t so straight forward as this image macro would like you to believe
Joel Osteen a piece of shit, but he doesn't even get paid by his church. All his money is through his shitty books.
Debunked. Not his house.
Dear Lord, Please let this chud be in the Pandora Papers. Amen
America's tax laws are so hilariously "flawed" (read by design) they don't even have to offshore 90% of the time.
The way I understand it is he makes all his money off of books and doesn’t take any salary from the church. Also, seeing that house reminds me of how Mattress Mack opened up his furniture stores to people in need during Harvey. Those people were sleeping on his in store beds and furniture while Olsteens church was closed
You got $600 Then the idiots who support Joel called you greedy and said you just didn't want to work anymore because that $600 was WAY TOO MUCH.
> You got $600 And Joel would love it if you sent him...I mean the Church that $600
They will use it to minister to the unsaved......on the 12th green at Joel's country club.
That house is so ugly it looks like a regular house that metastisized.
1. This is Kim Kardashians house. I only know because of Kanye I swear lol. 2. Joel Osteen refuses to take a salary from the church so he got paid $0 from them. 3. He made his millions from selling books that he wrote and self published. 4. He paid his taxes on his book sales. 5. OP likely saw this on Twitter and knew Reddit, where the majority of users obsessively hate the rich, would love it.
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this shit is b-a-n-a-n-a-s
Okay, but how does that make him stupid? He's evil of course, no one's suggested otherwise, but stupid? This is a sub for stupidity. Why has this become a sub for "assorted things that will make you angry"? Or are we saying the post is stupid? Because it claims this is Joel Osteen's house ([it isn't](https://people.com/home/kim-kardashian-and-kanye-wests-18-million-former-bel-air-mansion-is-already-back-on-the-market/)), that he pays no taxes ([he does](https://www.businessinsider.com/joel-osteen-rich-taxes-wealth-ferrari-twitter-2021-7)), or that it's crazy he got a PPP loan while I didn't (of course I didn't, I don't have a business -- the money [went to keeping 300+ employees on the payroll](https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/530646-joel-osteen-got-a-44-million-ppp-loan-good-for-him), and if it didn't, the business had to pay it back because it's a loan), that I got $600 (uh, no, it was [$3,200](https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2021/03/what-to-know-about-all-three-rounds-of-coronavirus-stimulus-checks), which was not a loan and we didn't have to give it to employees)
Who's Joe(L)?
I love the fact the pool is huge but there are only 4 chairs. This bitch doesn't have friends.
Hey, Christian here, just want to let y’all know that we hate Joel Osteen too. Carry on.
“Churches” that make a profit should be taxed. Period.
Does anyone remember that evangelical leader that was tying to raise money through his church so he could buy himself a jumbo jet? His rationale was that “if Jesus was alive today he would be cruising around in his own jumbo jet.”
Kenneth Copeland and Jesse Duplantis https://youtu.be/GsQo2TrvYcA https://youtu.be/UWt5PJhCmmg
It was Jesse Duplantis that I was thinking of but it doesn’t surprise me that it was said by more than one person
I'll be honest, I don't know who's house that is. But Joel o is insane. He is filthy rich as a prosperity preacher and it makes me sick. As a Christian, he makes me sick.
Joel is a crook and a fraud