All available evidence is that Trump doesn’t even think once about most of the things he does but in this case I don’t know what his motivation would be. He’s generally quite amenable to ‘Big Business’, and despite their ostensible non-profit status, organized religion are definitelyin thatcategory.
The basic rationale is that churches should have a tax-exempt status on the basis that they are charitable organizations that uniquely promote the public welfare and upstanding social values. If you can say that in 2025 with a straight face, you deserve a tax break.
Many churches, even smaller ones, have endowments/investments that produce funding. There is also the question of real estate taxes, which has long been an issue with the Catholic Church in particular.
How about Schools? Scouting? The Sierra Club? There are nearly 2 million non-profit orgs in the USA.
In any case, there would be no taxes collected.
One reason is the 1st Ad- and remember- “the power to tax is the power to destroy”. (Chief Justice John Marshall, it seems).
Churches, synagogues, and mosques are, by definition, nonprofit entities, and nonprofits are not taxed on their net income (as for-profit entities are) for a rather simple reason: they don’t have net income. While a church may have income in excess of expenditures in any given year, it has no owners or shareholders to benefit from increases in the value of the entity, to receive dividends, or otherwise to profit from the church’s income stream.… The notion that taxing churches would raise substantial federal revenue is wildly inaccurate, even neglecting the incoherence of imposing income taxes on a nonprofit organization. Clergy pay income and payroll taxes just like everyone else, and the local property tax exemption, while meaningful, is available to all nonprofits.
That isnt Federal, that is State by state . IIRC all states have that exemption. This isnt up to trump.
Can you exempt other non-profits but excludes churches? In any case, the amount generated- as a %- would be 2% or so.
Yes. You would have the IRS regulations alter the definition of 501c3 charitable organizations to not include the word “religious”.
Despite the protests in this thread and the general misunderstanding of the concept of “non-profit”, the IRS would have a difficult time justifying how many churches in this country don’t qualify under other aspects of the regulations, such as “charitable”.
Didn’t Trump say he was going to send 88,000 IRS agents to patrol the border? Who’s going to do the work of examining churches to remove their exemptions?
OK, that was mere gibberish at a rally. Those agents don’t exist yet, and only a tiny fraction of IRS agents are enforcement officers who carry guns.
The OPs question is not much clearer. Presumably, it was at least partly triggered by the “woke” bishop who delivered a “woke” sermon to his face after the Inauguration. Trump the Retaliator would love to remove her church’s tax exemption, no doubt.
What would that mean more broadly? Examine church by church to see if they are preaching “woke” topics or worse, helping the poor, immigrants, homeless, gays, trans, minorities, and women? That’s a process that would last longer than Trump’s term.
Here’s an example of a termination letter.
It’s dated April 15, 2015. The last date for filing a petition with the tax court is 7/15/2015. The release date of the memorandum is 2/26/2016. The memo also lists three courts that the church can petition. The process will clog the courts and sail on forever.
Doesn’t matter, you might respond. Getting his enemies tied up in expensive legal battles is Trump’s MO. Making them dance would feed Trump’s ego and make points with his base. One can’t ever discount that with Trump.
Still, going after churches is dangerous. Doing so would emphasize that Trump has never set foot in a church except at metaphorical gunpoint. More importantly, churches have fervent memberships who would rise up at any such actions. Action might cause the entire denomination to panic. All denominations have members that are Trump supporters. The potential for huge losses is higher than for any small gains.
IMO any question of the form “Is [some feature of the status quo] in any danger?” must be answered with “Yes” as long as we have a Calvinball-based regime instead of a conventional presidential administration.
They are not all-powerful. But they are loose cannons that could attempt to do anything, no matter how quixotic to their own interests. Further, the law of unintended consequences looms extra large when big power is vested in people who don’t think about consequences much at all before acting.
Trying to apply this wider rubric to this thread …
The OP’s initial question is oddly ill-framed, or at least oddly underspecified. IMO there are many ways trump could try to play both sides of this issue, sticking it to some churches / religious bodies while elevating others. Both in loudly shouted words and in quietly done deeds.
I don’t know how much more can be said; IMO trying to handicap the likelihood of any given play coming up in Calvinball is pretty much an exercise in futility. “Wait for [whatever] to actually happen and then react” is my motto going forward.
trump’s approach to governance can be likened to the Gish Gallop in debate where the goal is to create so many different controversies & distractions that the real work of subornment can proceed under the cover of all the noise and fireworks, much of which will eventually be seen to have signified nothing. While the actual (usually destructive) actions slip past largely unnoticed.
I won’t divert this any further besides saying you are grossly underestimating the amount of money involved when it comes to some churches. I just looked up my local Catholic diocese.
The Diocese of Providence closed out FY 2023 on a strong positive note, with its investments producing a return of 11 percent for the year ending June 30, 2023.
According to the annual audit report of its finances, diocesan investments were up nearly $20 million over FY 2022, at $219,278,482 for FY 2023.
I normally don’t even bother to participate in what will Trump do threads because of exactly this. Chaos outcomes are inherently unpredictable from inputs.
The only reason I came in is the title. I’m another who has been against the religious tax exemption for decades. It’s outrageous in a country that has - really, has - a separation of church and state. Not that there’s any value to debating it in our world or any foreseeable one.
Normally I’d say no; the IRS has always leaned over backwards to avoid taxing churches including ones that brazenly violate the rules that are supposed to justify the excepting. Something many right wing churches do quite openly as a show of power.
But Trump is such a loose cannon that it’s actually possible he’ll decide to go after them for some random reason. It wouldn’t be the first bunch of supporters he’s screwed over.
Oh, Trump’s quite religious. He’s seen the face of God after all; every time he looks in a mirror.
There is always the possibility that he/they will be selectively going after those that oppose their official policies and leave the right-wing church groups alone. I don’t see this as an “all or nothing” situation.
Overall, probably not, but if a religious entity is taking stands on candidates, or issues, they should.
Some independent churches (Greg Locke’s controversial facility is probably the best known) have simply not become a 501(c)3 just so they can say anything they want.
A group that has shown itself uncritical to the point he (probably accurately) feels he can basically ignore the interests of since they’ll ignore or rationalize just about anything he does that hurts them and just keep cheering.
