To tax or not tax churches?

Taxing churches or exempting them from taxes is a growing debate in multiple societies and all indicators tell that states are hungry for huge taxes that could come from huge church properties and incomes.

There’s a growing desire to have churches pay taxes as you might have noticed in media debates that reflect the state’s agony for losses of big sums of money due to tax exemption on churches.

Today, churches are not required by the law to submit an application for tax exemption or pay the application fee – it is automatic that churches don’t pay taxes.

Those who support tax exemption on church argue that the practice keeps government out of church affairs which upholds the Protestants’ great idea, the separation of church and state.

The Standing for Freedom Centre published an opinion in September 2021 by the famous US Republican party member with the title: “The power to tax the church is the power to destroy the Church”

The story was immediately removed about four days after publication. We tried to reach the Standing for Freedom Center to know what happened to the article but they have never responded.

But in summary, the story was profoundly rich in attacking the idea of taxing churches, describing it as evil as allowing government interference in religious affairs.

On the other hand, those who oppose the tax exemption on churches, those who support imposing taxes on churches say that in tough economic times like this one brought by Covid mandates, governments cannot afford to forego taxes worth billions of dollars every year which can come from churches.

Others support taxing churches as one way of punishing the Church for not supporting sodomy and the refusal to endorse homosexuals’ marriage as holy as man and woman marriage.

Among those who condemn the church for refusing Sodomy is a US Democrat politician Robert Francis O’Rourke (also known as Beto) best known for his 2018 campaign for U.S. Senate, and Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 elections.

According to O’Rourke, churches should incur taxes because they don’t accept homosexuality and, to him, allowing Sodomy is allowing freedoms of “everyone”.

In 2019, O’Rourke said “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution or organization in America that denies the full human rights, and the full civil rights, of everyone in America”

According to O’Rourke, not allowing sodomy marriages should implicate churches to lose the status of tax exemption in a nation founded on Protestant ideals of freedoms and separation of church and state.

How did tax exemption on churches come?

The Roman Emperor Constantine (306-337), after his government went to bed with the Roman Catholic Church (which many call Christianity), declared tax exemption on the church among other things including declaring Sunday as a day of rest.

Medieval England (5thC -14thC) also exempted the church from taxes, based on the rationale that the church relieved the state of some governmental functions, and therefore deserved a benefit in return.

It was a win-win relationship.

But the most significant event that brought tax exemption on churches is the English Statute of Charitable Uses of 1601 upon which the modern tax exemption for charities is based.

Before 1894, churches in the US had tax-exempt but it wasn’t official until the federal income tax exemption in 1894 (at a time of the great awakening that saw the rise of missionary work in Africa).

On May 4, 1970, the US Supreme Court upheld property tax exemptions for churches, declaring them to be in accordance with the US Constitution, holding that taxing churches would cause government interference in religious affairs.

We’ll keep updating you on whatever is going on about taxing the churches even at the level of individual states around the world.

Related story here.

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Faith Reporters 

Email: faithreporters@gmail.com

May God bless you

Comments

  1. Lord keep us their lambπŸ™πŸ™πŸŒ πŸ’«

    ReplyDelete
  2. The church is a holy house of God that shouldn't involve those business monetry things

    ReplyDelete
  3. Instead of governments Aiding churches in terms of money so as to expand them and keep inculcating a Sense of Godliness among people now they want to suck them... The judgement day is about to strike

    ReplyDelete

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