Not taxing churches seems unconstitutional to me.

[Rustynaerduwell]

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of a religion..." As I understand it, the government should be religiously blind and disinterested.

Isn't making a church tax exempt by law, in effect, respecting the establishment of that religion?

[unblock]

1. No, because there are also non-religious organizations that aren't taxed

The main distinction is for-profit vs non-profit.

Churches are non-profit, but so are many other charitable organizations and even some larger businesses.


The problem is more in enforcement or lack thereof, where they allow churches to violate the rules (effectively acting as a for-profit organization, and/or engaging in improper politicking) without consequences that they do enforce on non-churches.

[Jerry2144]

4. And atheism

Is non-prophet

[LastDemocratInSC]

5. That's a good one.

[GregariousGroundhog]

2. The laws are written in such a way that not-for-profit organizations in general are tax exempt.

Churches derive their tax status from their not-for-profit status and not from the fact that they are a religious organization.

[Wounded Bear]

3. If only more of them were truly "not for profit"...

[unblock]

6. exactly. the problem is enforcement.

mega-church rakes in millions and millions.

6% staff and expenses
3% building upgrade
1% charitable work
90% pastor takes all the rest as "salary + bonus"

viola, zero profit.


i helped out on the taxes for a local non-profit which mrs. unblock was (volunteer) president of for a while. there are a lot of rules and our tiny local organization was getting tripped up on them and making themselves liable for taxes. so we straightened them out to follow the rules better.

point is, puny, legitimate non-profits would get slammed with a big tax bill if they did what some of these mega-churches do.

politicians really don't want to go after churches even when they're blatantly breaking the rules. political suicide for the most part.
the only time it happens (rarely) is when it can look like the irs is cracking down and all the politicians can say who, what, me? oh, i had nothing to do with that, just the federal bureaucracy on auto-pilot.