Logically this would apply to all taxes. Should a church have to pay sales taxes on the goods it purchases? Should it have to payroll taxes on its employees?
If a tax break for being a Church isn’t unconstitutional under your interpretation, would cash payments for being a Church be equally acceptable? They are really just two sides of the same coin. Telling an entity it does not have to pay taxes that an identical organization (other than not being a Church) would have to pay is at the end no different from handing the Church a check for that amount of money. Maybe this church subsidy or handout could be handled like the German system (which I don’t know if it is still in effect) where individuals register their religion and pay a special income tax to that religious organization.
Taxing a Church at a higher rate because of its religious nature would be abhorrent and a clear violation of the Constitution. Granting a Church a tax break because of its religious nature is equally a violation of the Establishment Clause that you seem to forget about in your championing of the Free Exercise Clause. It strikes me as more than a little sneaky of Churches to insist on the one hand that the government cannot control them, but on the other that they should receive government hand outs not available to others. Such state subsidy of religion degrades both the State and the Church.
It’s just a simple truth that under the law as it stands at the moment, laws of general applicability that have a restrictive impact on religion are not unconstitutional. It’s a Scalia decision that I like, though not necessarily his reasoning. Property taxes are laws of general applicability. Unless you can show they are set in such a way as to have a deliberate effect of specifically harming the free exercise of religion, removing the tax exemption for Churches would pass constitutional muster.
Nonsense. As stated above, the state can tax Newspapers without inhibiting the freedom of the press.
The state can also tax the production and sale of candles, sacramental wine, bibles, and other things used for religious worship without infringing on the establishment clause. What makes the building or the ground beneath it so special that to allow a tax would completely contradict the Constitution?
I guess the test would be how many churches would have to close because of the tax (could not afford to stay open). If a change in tax law had the EFFECT of forcing the cessation of certain religous services, it probably could be argued that the tax is Un-Constitutional.
While the state can tax newspapers, it cannot apply a tax so large as to make newspapers incapable of operating.
Depending on the location, I could see some churches getting hit pretty hard by the imposition of a property tax. This would, of course, depend on how they were zoned and the basis of the tax valuation and rate. Since many states already have ways of dodging the property tax (I linked to California’s aready), and since there are many ways that you can adjust much of the property tax based on whether you are agricultural, residential or commercial as well. Finally, here in CA with Prop 13 we would have to figure out the value of the lot back in the 70s as well.
It most certainly can. Lots of businesses that fail could pass by if not for such high tax rates. The cost of embedded taxes in the average retail good is 23%. Imagine if that number could be lowered, how much more disposable income the average person would have to support whatever type of business they want. Taxes come with a cost that businesses and individuals bear. Sometimes that cost is certain businesses fail.
It’s possible. I’m not a Constitutional lawyer. Grandfathering in existing church buildings might get around that, though. It would not require any churches to close. New churches (or new buildings) would have to meet the same tax burden as any other new building, which should be legal, since the tax is not targeting religions specifically.
The Press is specifically identified as a Constutitionally protected enterprise, however. If a cost is added that kills some significant number of newspapers, that cost is going to have to undergo some serious Constitutional scrutiny.
Let us say that tomorrow the State of California decided to place a $5.00 tax on every print copy of newspapers. Let us assume that this tax is to pay for the extensive recycling costs of paper and the environmental damage of ink. (Please bear with me on numbers - I realize that the actuals won’t stand up to scutiny).
This tax would have the effect of shutting down many newspapers in the State. That would be seen by many as an attack on the Press, regardless of intentions. While I do not know where the Supreme Court would fall, I do think that there would be a legitimate enough court case to start the ball rolling.
To bring this full-circle, if the State decided to to start applying property taxes on churches, I THINK that many would close their doors. This NEW taxation by the State would certainly be attacked from a Constitutional perspective.
This thread has addressed both property and income taxes, but I’m not clear on how the exemption for income taxes works now.
If my neighbor gives $1000 to his church, he’s allowed to deduct that from his income that’s reported to the IRS, right? So he’s basically giving $1000 pre-tax to his church.
Also, I think it’s true that the church doesn’t have to pay taxes on the $1000 when they get it. Right? What about when they pay the preacher? Does he pay tax on his income?
Then here’s my real question. We have friends who monetarily support some missionaries. I assume that their contributions are tax deductible, whether that’s given to this missionary organization or indirectly through the church.
My concern is that these missionaries that my friends support, are not going towards building facilities to help impoverished people get clean drinking water or anything like that. These missionaries are assigned to Italy! Their only purpose is proselytizing, trying to convert Italians to Christianity. Is this activity being paid for by dollars that aren’t taxed? If so, that really bothers me.
You don’t really understand how nonprofits work, do you? For one, you don’t have to be a “charity” to be a nonprofit. You don’t have to be engaged in some sort of charitable work to have tax exempt status. For example, educational organizations don’t have to pay taxes. Trade associations don’t have to pay taxes. Being exempt from taxes is not just about charity.
Furthermore, your definition of “profit” is somewhat short-sighed. Taking in an income “greater than total charity” is necessary for any nonprofit to survive. You need to pay overhead, for one. You also need to grow the organization. If you are giving out 100% of what you take in, your doors will shut very quickly.
From everything I have read so far, Churches **automatically ** are granted charity status, so any donations are a tax deduction. If your friends are donating to missionaries through a church (or other recognized charity), then they are getting their deduction.
It’s worth noting that churches are not exempt from taxes on ALL their real estate holdings- only on property used for an explicitly, demonstrably religious purpose.
Here in Austin, for example, someone once bequeathed a large tract of beautiful land to the diocese. The diocese built a chapel and a retreat center on the land, but MOST of the land remained undeveloped.
As it turned out, the diocese was only given an exemption for the land the chapel and retreat center were on. The rest of the land was treated like any other prime real estate, and the diocese eventually gave most of the land to the city of Austin because the real estate taxes would have been oppressive otherwise.
The flaw in that reasoning is that companies and consumers depend on the services that those taxes pay for.
Exactly. It’s no different than an advertising agency declaring itself to be a non-profit and tax exempt. They’d be laughed out of court, but slap the religion label on yourself and you can skate on taxes. It’s unfair, and a burden on everyone else who has to pick up the slack.
What I think would be fair is if churches, mosques, etc. were treated as businesses. If it’s a charitable business, let it file and be audited as such, and be tax-free. If it’s for profit (Joyce Meyers Ministries) or an explicitly political group (700 Club-type), tax it as any regular business.
Property taxes might be dicier. Property taxes support the local school district*; any would-be tax-exempt outfit, churches included, might have to demonstrate some sort of “community benefit.” *There was a big stink here not too many years ago because the Catholic Church opened a luxury retirement home in a commercial area and torqued the nearby schools pretty badly.
Oh, and I firmly believe that there is NO way these regulations could EVER be misused…
Has been tried in the Netherlands, to no avail. As a rule, you can’t get nearly enough donations anymore to keep a church as a church. It is possible though, to keep the pretty buildings intact, and to allow many more people to enjoy the building, by giving the church a new destination.
What usually happens in the Netherlands (which is an atheist country) is that the Church sells the building itself to a developer on condition that it is restored and that the new destination is “fitting” . Then the building is restored and remodeled.
Recent years have seen, in the Netherlands, churches in Holland converted to bookstores , apartment buildings , chic hotels, concert-halls and discotheques.
The only church built new in the last decade in my hometown Maastricht (formerly a Catholic stronghold), financed by religious people themselves, is a mosque.
There is a big difference between your analogy and the proposed taxing of churches. Your example is a focused law targeting newspapers. The expansion of property tax to cover all property is not focused on churches. Although the effect might well be the same, I believe it’s a much weaker Constitutional case when the law is applied equally.
There’s even some precedent for ruling laws that exempt churches from some taxes as unconstitutional by virtue of the fact that it amounts to government support of religion. See Texas Monthly Inc. v. Bullock, in which a law that exempted religious publications from sales tax was struck. I haven’t read the decision, but some of the sources online suggest that part of the reason was that the law was too narrowly catering to religion. The implication is that tax exemptions for non-profits (which happen to include churches) are legal, but focused exemptions for religious institutions only are not. Which, to me, suggests that either forcing churches to file as non-profits (and actually be so), or eliminating the tax exemption entirely would both be Constitutional.
Why is this ‘to no avail’? I was responding to a poster who was expressing unhappiness that the property tax would remove the pretty churches from the community. It sounds like the pretty churches in the Netherlands are staying pretty, so it sounds like things are availing nicely, from the perspective being argued.
If the complaint is that parishoners will no longer be able to afford their big pretty churches if they have to pay taxes on them, my response is “Tough beans”. I can’t afford a pretty Ferarri if I’m required to pay for it, but I can afford a simpler, functional car just fine. Just like parishoners can still afford to meet and worship even if they can’t afford a cathedral. Since their right to worship isn’t infringed either way, and since my car purchases aren’t government-subsidized, I don’t see why worshippers should get a financial exemption for pretty buildings, either.
Not only are they used for church activities during the week, they’re used for secular charitable acts too. About 1/2 of the WIC clinics I worked at took place in churches who didn’t even charge the program for the use of their buildings. Another church leased us the use of their building for America Reads meetings. And aren’t churches common places for addiction recovery meetings, and support groups of other natures? Don’t those sorts of things enhance the community to a meaningful degree?
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