# If churches paid taxes, would they survive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2007, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531 "2007-01-19T00:54:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![According\_to\_Pliny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@According\_to\_Pliny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/According_to_Pliny)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/1 "2007-01-19T00:54:04Z")
Is the tax break what keeps them alive? Say the tax was the same as private clubs, Rotary, Elks, or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/2 "2007-01-19T00:59:56Z")
Seems to be the only part of ‘Separation of Church and State’ that is in force, doesn’t it. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/3 "2007-01-19T01:34:05Z")
What do you mean by “churches paying taxes”? It’s not a smartalecky question; I’m looking for what you want them to do. Pay property taxes on their land and buildings? Reasonable, and probably the one exemption in place nationwide. Pay taxes on their “income”? Uh, they would qualify as NFPs supported by donations and endowments, and hence exempt from taxes, if their income as a corporate body were taxed. Then you get into who owns the building. The local congregation, or the national church. What happens if they split? Whoever has title to the property would be the appropriate taxpayer – if they owed income tax. Clergy, except those in religious orders, **do** pay taxes on their income, same as anyone else. If you want to sort out what a vow of poverty and communal ownership means in terms of income taxes, be my guest; it’s one aspect I don’t care to look at. Sales taxes on things sold through the church? Some jurisdictions require them to collect it, some don’t. The only objection I can see is the obligation to file those godawful sales-tax statements in order to give the state 7% of the $40 they took in in book sales this quarter. So I’m seriously interested in seeing what exactly you had in mind – and not totally averse to the concept. As you can see, there are a number of things you might have meant (or all of them), and I’d like to explore what it was you did intend in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/4 "2007-01-19T05:01:01Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] What do you mean by “churches paying taxes”? It’s not a smartalecky question; I’m looking for what you want them to do. Pay property taxes on their land and buildings? Reasonable, and probably the one exemption in place nationwide. [/QUOTE] And given the value of the land and buildings, the amount of money that churches would pump into the public coffers would help relieve the burden on the homeowners that carry the brunt of it now. It’s something that needs to happen. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/5 "2007-01-19T05:16:55Z")
[QUOTE=enipla] Seems to be the only part of ‘Separation of Church and State’ that is in force, doesn’t it. [/QUOTE] The state giving a special privilege to churches is not what I’d call separation of church and state. ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/6 "2007-01-19T05:25:45Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] Then you get into who owns the building. The local congregation, or the national church. What happens if they split? [/QUOTE] Why, [excommunication](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601764.html), of course! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/7 "2007-01-19T05:57:23Z")
[QUOTE=Clothahump] And given the value of the land and buildings, the amount of money that churches would pump into the public coffers would help relieve the burden on the homeowners that carry the brunt of it now. It’s something that needs to happen. [/QUOTE] Ah, a reasonable point. So: Let’s say a church has a $100,000 budget. It pays $15,000 a year for operating expenses: heat, utilities, custodial care, etc. It hires a pastor at, let’s say, $35,000 a year, and a secretary at $15,000 a year. It supports the national denomination with $5,000 a year. It pays out $15,000 a year in supplies: Sunday school materials, communion elements, replacements for hymnals, altar linens, etc. And it devotes $15,000 to local charitable causes. Now, let’s tax that property, and figure on the building’s evaluation, it pays $14,000 a year in property taxes. Where’s that going to come from? We have $65,000 in fixed expenses: operating costs and salaries. It probably has an assessment for that $5,000 from the national church. So it has to be supplies and charity that it’s derived from, and from what I know of church programs, they pare supply funding requests to the bone. So let’s assume it all comes out of the charitable gifts allocation, cutting that to a bare $1,000 a year. But that $14,000 was going to help the poor: food, rental assistance, aid with utilities, etc. And they will still need help. Since they can no longer get it from the churches, they will turn to social services. Where that additional $14,000 is being used in part for salaries to add the social workers to take care of the increased requests for help. Meaning only a fraction of it will go to the poor. Congratulations. You’ve just **raised** residential property taxes, to take care of the expanded social services program your plan will require. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/8 "2007-01-19T05:57:49Z")
The power to tax is the power to destroy. Rule number zero on taxation. That said, churches _must_ be tax-free. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/9 "2007-01-19T06:42:54Z")
Of course they would survive. Far less popular and wealthy groups can survive paying taxes. [QUOTE=Polycarp] But that $14,000 was going to help the poor: food, rental assistance, aid with utilities, etc. And they will still need help. Since they can no longer get it from the churches, they will turn to social services. Where that additional $14,000 is being used in part for salaries to add the social workers to take care of the increased requests for help. Meaning only a fraction of it will go to the poor. Congratulations. You’ve just **raised** residential property taxes, to take care of the expanded social services program your plan will require. [/QUOTE] Even assuming that money was _really_ going to the poor, so what ? I’d rather the government did it anyway [QUOTE=E-Sabbath] The power to tax is the power to destroy. Rule number zero on taxation. That said, churches _must_ be tax-free. [/QUOTE] By that logic _all_ taxes should be outlawed, except perhaps those of people convicted of capital crimes, as they are the only ones the government can legally destroy. They can and should pay taxes, as they benefit from the government like everyone else. The police protect them, the fire deptartment protects them, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/10 "2007-01-19T13:12:29Z")
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion… > [@Chief Justice John Marshal](#): > > That the power to tax involves the power to destroy; that the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create; that there is a plain repugnance, in conferring on one government a power to control the constitutional measures of another, which other, with respect to those very measures, is declared to be supreme over that which exerts the control, are propositions not to be denied. But all inconsistencies are to be reconciled by the magic of the word CONFIDENCE. Taxation, it is said, does not necessarily and unavoidably destroy. To carry it to the excess of destruction would be an abuse, to presume which, would banish that confidence which is essential to all government. > > But is this a case of confidence? Would the people of any one State trust those of another with a power to control the most insignificant operations of their State government? We know they would not. Why, then, should we suppose that the people of any one State should be willing to trust those of another with a power to control the operations of a government to which they have confided their most important and most valuable interests? In the legislature of the Union alone, are all represented. The legislature of the Union alone, therefore, can be trusted by the people with the power of controlling measures which concern all, in the confidence that it will not be abused. This, then, is not a case of confidence, and we must consider it as it really is. Generally, the point remains valid. The State specifically has one of those wall thingies between it and churches, and the no-tax clause is a direct result. The State does not have a wall thingie between it and your buttocks, and thus may tax your pants off and you into a wooden barrel. Ya gots? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/11 "2007-01-19T14:15:35Z")
Are churches the only organizations exempt from property taxes? If a non profit organization owns a building do they still pay property taxes? Marc ---
**Author:** ![redtail23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@redtail23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redtail23)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/12 "2007-01-19T14:22:39Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] Ah, a reasonable point. So: Let’s say a church has a $100,000 budget. It pays $15,000 a year for operating expenses: heat, utilities, custodial care, etc. It hires a pastor at, let’s say, $35,000 a year, and a secretary at $15,000 a year. It supports the national denomination with $5,000 a year. It pays out $15,000 a year in supplies: Sunday school materials, communion elements, replacements for hymnals, altar linens, etc. And it devotes $15,000 to local charitable causes. Now, let’s tax that property, and figure on the building’s evaluation, it pays $14,000 a year in property taxes. Where’s that going to come from? We have $65,000 in fixed expenses: operating costs and salaries. It probably has an assessment for that $5,000 from the national church. So it has to be supplies and charity that it’s derived from, and from what I know of church programs, they pare supply funding requests to the bone. So let’s assume it all comes out of the charitable gifts allocation, cutting that to a bare $1,000 a year. But that $14,000 was going to help the poor: food, rental assistance, aid with utilities, etc. And they will still need help. Since they can no longer get it from the churches, they will turn to social services. Where that additional $14,000 is being used in part for salaries to add the social workers to take care of the increased requests for help. Meaning only a fraction of it will go to the poor. Congratulations. You’ve just **raised** residential property taxes, to take care of the expanded social services program your plan will require. 🙂 [/QUOTE] OK, that’s fine for the church itself. But the churches around here have enough money to build youth centers and family centers and “health centers” and auditoriums and separate buildings for schools and expansions larger than the actual church and etc. etc. etc., not to mention purchasing beautiful, well-kept, old houses covering half a square block (or more) in high-priced residential neighborhoods just to destroy them for concrete parking lots . Somehow I’m thinking that these churchs aren’t spending ALL of their extra money on the poor. Howzabout the church itself isn’t taxed, but all the other property is? Those may (or may not) be used for “church-related” activities, but they ain’t church. Why should my gym have to pay property taxes, but the church gym doesn’t? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/13 "2007-01-19T19:35:52Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion… Generally, the point remains valid. The State specifically has one of those wall thingies between it and churches, and the no-tax clause is a direct result. [/QUOTE] No, the tax exemption amounts to an establishment of religion, no different than the government handing out money to churches except it’s less honest. They are given an advantage over non-religious groups. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/14 "2007-01-19T19:44:28Z")
You have an odd and very incorrect position on this, Der. They do not respect _an_ establishment, but _all_ establishments in this manner. That said, the government _is_ biased in favor of religion in this manner. So go ahead and yank the amendment out of the Constitution. Love to see what happens next. Because that’s what needs to be done to fix it your way. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/15 "2007-01-19T20:19:56Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] Congratulations. You’ve just **raised** residential property taxes, to take care of the expanded social services program your plan will require. [/QUOTE] There’s no point in quibbling with the math specifics, but logically I don’t think you can reasonably claim that making taxation equitable will raise overall tax burdens. If churches did more to save social welface costs than they cost in property taxes, why not extend that to regular charities, like Covenant House or food banks or what have you? Surely the same logic applies? If you can prove with objective evidence that exemotion charitable organization from property taxes creates anet savings for government, I’d campaign for that exemption tomorrow. But it should either be extended to both religious and secular charities, or it shouldn’t be extended at all. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/16 "2007-01-19T20:32:04Z")
How about church businesses which compete with regular businesses ? ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/17 "2007-01-19T20:54:20Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] You have an odd and very incorrect position on this, Der. They do not respect _an_ establishment, but _all_ establishments in this manner. That said, the government _is_ biased in favor of religion in this manner. So go ahead and yank the amendment out of the Constitution. Love to see what happens next. Because that’s what needs to be done to fix it your way. [/QUOTE] No, **Der** ’s position is neither odd nor in my view incorrect. Giving a church a tax exemption that non-religious groups cannot get is the same as giving it cash handouts that non-religious groups cannot get. It’s an establishment. As has been pointed out, some aspects of religion are already taxed. There is no mainstream support for the idea that preacher salaries need to be exempt from income tax. What the recent SCOTUS decisions have held (based on _Smith v Employment Division_) is that religious organizations cannot claim that being subjected to a law of general applicability is unconstitutional, unless they can show it is a front to attack religion. Taxing church property at a higher level than non-church property - presumptively unconstitutional. Taxing church property at the same rate as non-church property - not presumptively unconstitutional. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/18 "2007-01-19T20:56:16Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] How about church businesses which compete with regular businesses ? [/QUOTE] Should be taxed, IMO. I’d make one exception: church runs a profitable business to raise money to do charitable work, devoting all its net income after expenses to the latter. Such operations are pretty rare but do exist. As for the other stuff: I have seen the sorts of churches that have what a priest of my acquaintances referred to as an Edifice Complex – bigger, better, and more gaudy for us, and to heck with who needs help. I’m disgusted by them. But there is no really good point to draw that line. Church (=community of likeminded believers) needs a place to meet; over a certain minimum size, that needs to be a set-apart structure. And there is IMO nothing wrong with it being reasonably comfortable and attractive. The problem is that there is an unbroken spectrum from concrete block structure painted white with a cross nailed to the roof all the way up to $17,000,000 megamonstrosity. I don’t propose to prove that any given church does more in charitable giving than it would owe in property taxes; I suspect the majority of them do, based on a reasonable sample. Even the SBC, which gets pitted on a regular basis for their virulent homophobia on the national level (and in some local congregations), was the largest single non-government intervenor in the charitable response to Hurricane Floyd. I think the same is true for Katrina but don’t have the same sources available as I did with Floyd. And I’m quite surprised to find that non-religious charitable groups do not receive a tax exemption. IMO, they should – provided of course that they’re bona fide charitable. ---
**Author:** ![Renob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8c91f0/32.png) [@Renob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renob)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/19 "2007-01-19T21:02:27Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] How about church businesses which compete with regular businesses ? [/QUOTE] A lot of nonprofits have “businesses” that compete with regular businesses. Why single out churches? ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531/20 "2007-01-19T21:07:13Z")
Not all churches are equal in terms of economic status. Many smaller churches, including a large share of rural churches and those serving racial minorities, operate on a shoestring budget, and might go under if they faced taxation. On the other hand, the “megachurces” in wealthy suburban districts generally have the most money, and would not suffer from taxation as much. Those wealthy churches are the driving force behind everything bad in our current religious situation: injection of religion into politics, dumbing-down of theology, creation science, and so forth. The situation confirms the famous words of G. K. Chesterton: > [@](#): > > The rich have been the scum of the earth in every nation. Taxing the churches would drive people away from small, independent churches to big, greedy ones. The big, greedy ones would become more powerful. Doubtlessly this is not the desired result for many who want to tax the churches, but it would be a classic demonstration of the law of unintended consequences in action. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-churches-paid-taxes-would-they-survive/388531.md?page=2)