Some organizations within any religious hierarchy are structured to funnel charitable donations to those less fortunate and so are tax exempt like those of their secular counterparts. But most of Church property and assets are tax exempt, if that portion of their organization also seeks to help the less fortunate they can, through the government’s social welfare programs, by paying taxes.
*I apologize if this has been covered before, and I’m sure it must have been, however I simply cannot find it in the archives.
That doesn’t make it fair or sensible. Religions being tax exempt…what makes them special in the eyes of a government that isn’t involved in that sort of thing.
Whether or not it’s good policy or not is a separate issue, but if the government grants TE status to all religions, then it’s not establishing any one religion and it doesn’t run afoul of the separation of church and state.
Establishing a tax policy for a group distinct from all other institutions simply because the state has recognized their religion as ‘organized’ is not separation of church and state.
But perhaps I’m wrong and all that phrase ever meant was ‘no religion above another, and all above us’.
All non-profit organizations in the United States are tax-exempt. Churches are non-profit organizations and are therefore tax-exempt.
The idea that paying taxes would “help the less fortunate” is absurd. Tax money mostly goes to either helping the more fortunate or hurting the less fortunate. As examples of the former, consider bailouts of major banks where the executives earn nine-figure incomes, ethanol subsidies, and interest payments to the Chinese government. As examples of the latter, consider missile strikes that kill Afghan civilians or a ‘war on drugs’ that cycles a large portion of the nation’s poor population in and out of jail throughout their life. These things are antithetical to the principles of Christianity. (And to most other major religions, I would hope.)
It’s mostly a tradition that churches not be taxed, part of it is because politically churches are often gathering places for politically active people. In many cities urban churches are heavily African American and are one of the few community structures available in lower income, minority neighborhoods. If those churches had to pay their proper share of property tax they would often be unable to continue operations without increased donations. So anyone trying to tax them would be in political hot water.
That’s just one scenario, most every church is important to some group that is politically important, be it soccer moms, lower income blacks, Jews, conservative Catholics, liberal Catholics, anti-war Quakers and etc.
Aside from tradition, churches are non-profit operations so technically it isn’t all that unusual they not be taxed on their non-profit operations. Some churches have for-profit operating units and those do get taxed.
a) the political importance of community churches change
b) the policy on taxing non profits change
Churches will remain tax exempt. “Wall of separation between Church and State” was in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, it is not part of the U.S. Constitution. The Church cannot establish a religion, it can’t show religious favoritism, it can’t support one religion over another, it can’t force people to undergo religious indoctrination, it can’t suppress religion, but there is no requirement under the Constitution that we tax religious groups.
Further it is particularly notable that Churches not paying tax on their organization’s operating revenue is due to clauses in the internal revenue code. Their not paying property taxes is a matter of local ordinance as property taxes are governed on the local level. Some States there are State-level rules about how counties and municipalities may collect property taxes, and other States essentially any incorporated town or any county can levy property taxes however it wishes.
So that aspect has little to do with the U.S. Federal government, and mostly goes back to the political influence churches have on their localities, which is significant.
Because the government unspokenly regards it as desirable to promote religion in general. Anything is better than the Ultimate Evil of genuine secularism or worse atheism. The old idea that it’s better to kill for Kali and uphold a faith than it is to be an atheist and uphold none.
I went looking and found this thread: Why are churches in the US tax exempt? Upon looking through the thread, I find that my own contribution was to link to an earlier thread, to which I contributed by linking to yet earlier threads. I wonder how deeply-nested this will eventually go.
There have been times and places where the state-approved church had the power to levy taxes. (See [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe]tithe.[/url) Just be glad we don’t have that.