Tax Churches?

Friday, 19 April 2024. FFP#61

About the Friday Freethought Perennials in general: This subset of my blog is to answer questions, nearly always already answered by me and by many others but posed again and again—over many years and in many places—on freethought, atheism, secular humanism, secularism/church-state/”This is a Christian Nation,” and similar topics. These answers are mostly not intended to be original analyses, breaths of fresh air, so much as just putting a whole series of things on the record (I’d say “forever,” except I know better). One source for many of these answers is the 2012 Prometheus Books book by me and my son (Michael E. Buckner), In Freedom We Trust: An Atheist Guide to Religious Liberty—and that is where footnotes and careful citations of sources can be found. It’s available in many libraries and pretty readily in the used book after-market. I’ll cite writings of others that answer these things in more depth if I’m aware of them when I post these.

Tax Churches?

For the sake of religious freedom/liberty of conscience, an idea I prize highly and not just for myself and those who share my irreligion, the question (questions, really) about taxing churches (and synagogues, mosques, temples, etc.) must be approached with care and clarity. I’ve written about this before, but let me start by setting out a few principles that I argue must be upheld:

1. Religious and irreligious organizations must be treated equally, without regard to anyone’s opinion as to whether the organization promotes the truth. Even if a majority like or dislike the religion or philosophy promoted, that alone should not determine tax policy. This is not to suggest that there cannot be any limits to what ideas an organization can promote. For example, if a group promotes a clearly criminal activity—murder or robbery, say—I’m steadfastly against letting them enjoy special tax treatment.

2. People and organizations of people should pay for what they use.

3. Government’s role(s) regarding religion should be steadfastly neutral. No government, federal, state, or local, should promote or oppose religious ideas and beliefs. (If an idea, good or bad, happens to be important to a religious group, that by itself should not mean governments should support or oppose it.)

4. The power to tax without limitation can be the power to destroy, but taxation properly regulated and limited is crucial to funding the common needs that government can best provide for a just society.

The questions related to taxing churches are not at all new. American founders like James Madison, Republican Presidents of 150 years ago, famous Americans, and many others have weighed in on these matters.

For example—

James Madison vetoed a bill where it was “proposed to exempt Houses of Worship from taxes.”

The divorce between Church and State ought to be absolute. It ought to be so absolute that no Church property anywhere, in any state or in the nation, should be exempt from equal taxation; for if you exempt the property of any church organization, to that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community. —James A. Garfield, Republican (20th U.S. President in 1881);  as a Congressman in 1874.

I would call your attention to the importance of correcting an evil that, if permitted to continue, will probably lead to great trouble in our land before the close of the Nineteenth century.  It is the acquisition of vast amounts of untaxed church property.… In a growing country, where real estate enhances so rapidly with time as in the United States, there is scarcely a limit to the wealth that may be acquired by corporations, religious or otherwise, if allowed to retain real estate without taxation. The contemplation of so vast a property as here alluded to, without taxation, may lead to sequestration without constitutional authority, and through blood.  I would suggest the taxation of all property equally, whether church or corporation. —Ulysses S. Grant, Republican, 18th U.S. President [1869-1877], Message to Congress from the President, December 7, 1875.

Mark Twain noted that when “no church property is taxed … the infidel and the atheist and the man without religion are taxed to make up the deficit in the public income thus caused.”

So, what about Ed Buckner? If I may speak for him, I’d say,

1. Exempt religious organizations from income taxes but only under the same circumstances as any other non-profit groups: require accounting, to assure that the organization is actually non-profit. (That is not the law now: churches, mosques, temples, etc., need only declare that they are that, and no accounting at all is required. Some responsible churches do account to their members for their money—but not all and no law requires it.)

2. Require all organizations that receive police and fire services and make use of roads and streets to pay the local real estate taxes needed to finance those services. This is a matter of state and local law and varies greatly—most but not all jurisdictions exempt churches from such taxes. They shouldn’t—when some get special treatment, everyone else has to pay more.

3. All organizations, religious or not, non-profit or not, should have to withhold income taxes on employees, pay into social security, etc. For the most part, all are in fact now required to do this. The IRS Code grants various special privileges—like exempting the value of housing provided by a church from income taxes—to clergy—and should not.

The basic idea, in my opinion, is that Catholics, atheists, humanists, Baptists, and Muslims should not be asked to supplement the expenses of each other in unequal measure. No special privileges or special tax treatment based on religion.

Treat all organizations the same regarding taxes—anything else favors or restricts based on matters that are not any of any government’s business.

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