Is the high number of tax exempt, grant filing churches sucking the revenue from our communities?

Question

Every one has a right to assembly, including the expression of faith and denomination. That's great.
But any and every recognized church can file for tax exemption on property or services. They also apply for district - alotted grants for everything from signage, landscaping and billboards. There is actually nothing wrong with that...not exactly.
The problem is, each district may have as many churches as it has ATM machines. How does it add up? How much revenue are all of these churches disallowing the city when that tax money could also be used for schools, roads, public services and development? And should the number of churches per district be limited for that reason?
- Please, serious and intelligent answers only. -

Answer 1

Interesting, but I just looked up some stuff on that for my day job. It seems, 2004 numbers if I recall, that all non-profits and foundations had some $1.1 trillion in revenues and some $1.9 trillion in assets. But just religious organizations, they had revenues of some $88 billion. All non-profits (which can range from labor union offices, to environmental groups, to special research labs as well as most schools and colleges, in addition to churches and religious organizations) provided some 8 percent of the paychecks in the US that year.

As for tax exemptions on property, there are piles of factories that locate to this community or that after given a pledge of exemptions or a break on taxes. Then too, if your community is like mine, the city buys up blocks of houses along creeks and rivers from a federal or state grant to make "green space" or buy up blocks of old buildings downtown and await approval of urban redevelopment grants to renovate. My community has tens of millions of dollars of property that is off the property tax rolls because of things like this--far, far more than all the church property in town. We've got five public high schools and one small Catholic school. We've got over a hundred public schools for the lower grades to hold thousands of students, and maybe a couple dozen private schools, all but one sharing existing church outbuildings like a gym and "fellowship hall".

We've several churches that also operate shelters for the homeless. They have feeding and clothing programs too. There are perhaps more literacy classes going on in churches in my town than the government agencies are doing. When houses burn down, families stranded after drug confiscations or they are made inhabitable because they have become crime scenes, churches around here are quick to help--government agencies call the churches to help people when they aren't equipped to meet the immediate needs. Of course, that is not to mention the times that churches are used for places to vote or meeting halls when other facilities are not available, or again as disaster refuges or staging grounds. Churches aren't all dead weight to their communities.

Answer 2

I agree to some extent. But consider what they do with all of that revenue. They spend most of it on salaries and expenses which eventually flows back to the communities - or at least the private sector. The part they spend on real estate of course never goes back. And they pay no real estate taxes. Most churches seem to be cash poor and real estate rich. Since they do more good than harm I can live with it.