Churches & Tax Exemption: Growing Less Settled?

Since I occasionally write about tax law and religious organizations, I am sometimes asked if there is a realistic possibility that churches might lose their tax exempt status given scandals ranging from televangelist salaries to sexual abuse. My go-to response is that there are hundreds of congregations in every congressional district, and if there is one thing that would unite them it would be protecting that status. So no.

Making me wonder if my response has been too glib are the following recent pieces on this topic that the authors thought worth the effort to write. The first relates to certain specific churches, but the other two are more broad based defenses of the exemption, responding to recent criticisms: 

• Taylor Holley, Note, Auditing Scientology: Reexamining the Church’s 501(c)(3) Tax Exemption Eligibility, 54 Tex. Tech. L. Rev. 345 (2022). The author raises commerciality, private inurement, and fundamental public policy concerns with Scientology organizations.

• Reece Barker, Note, A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Taxation of Churches, 47 BYU L. Rev. 1001 (2022). The author argues “[a]though religious organizations are currently exempted from taxation, this issue is important because there is a growing appetite to remove the exemptions. For example, many view religion as an untapped source of revenue for cash-strapped governments. Others think they can coerce religious organizations to bend to the will of popular opinion through revocation of tax exemption. But whether the tax is designed to increase revenue or to align doctrine with popular opinion, religious taxation is off the table. It is off the table because tax exemption for religious organizations is not a reward, benefit, tax break, or legislative prerogative; it is a right rooted in the First Amendment. A right that acts as a crucial bulwark of society because it enables state and church autonomy that protects each from exercising undue influence over the other.” (footnotes omitted)

• Howard Husock, Removing the Tax Exemption for Religious Congregations Is the Wrong Move for Our Polarized Nation (Opinion, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Nov. 17, 2022). He concludes “[t]he value of religion in providing links among neighbors, promoting friendship, and building a foundation for good works in an increasingly fragmented society transcends any tax accounting. During this time of extreme polarization, limiting the tax deduction for America’s most popular form of charitable giving would be exactly the wrong move.”

And as an added bonus, another recent article addresses the perennial topic of churches and politics:

• Julia Camp, John Masselli, and Amy J.N. Yurko, Religion versus Politics: An age-old question with continued importance to the U.S. nonprofit classification system, The ATA Journal of Legal Tax Research (2022) (subscription required). From the abstract: “Following the awarding of church status to some seemingly politically charged organizations, we investigate this issue and propose that it is time for the U.S. Congress and the IRS to revisit, evaluate, and revamp the existing system to prevent political organizations from abusing the tax provisions intended to benefit churches.”

Lloyd Mayer