Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof?

Question

why do churches not have to pay taxes? is this not a law that respects religion?

Answer 1

I fully agree.

The problem is, churches declare themselves as non-profit. When you see huge monuments of glass and technology being erected by churches, it's easy to question just how "non-profit" they are. But they could legitimately complain that, if their followers want to pay up so they can worship in the comforts and extravagances of luxury, what right does the government have to deny them that free exercise of their religion?

So there's not much we can do about it, even though there are tons of obvious cases where the laws are being misapplied and abused (by people of religion, no less).

It seems the solution is to start establishing our own little home-based religions. You can donate 100% of your salary to the religion in the form of tithing and you can have "the church" provide you with all the comforts that you require as a minister, and you can avoid paying taxes like all the other ruling elite families do.

We'll need to prove that it's a bona fide religion with followers. So if 20 of us start these churches and just stop in at each others church as "followers" every other week and hear a little "sermon" about whatever, it's fully 100% legal. It can be about the weather -- oh wait, that's already an established church: Envirofundamentalism. LOL.

Really, Leona was right, taxes ARE for the "little people". The smart ones figure out ways to use and abuse and scam the system. It's the uneducated plebes, who actually THINK mega rich politicians are looking out for THEIR interests, that are the suckers who pay most of the taxes.

It's a shame that our system rewards dishonesty and scamming, but welcome to the American way.

Answer 2

"The power to tax is the power to destroy."
-can't remember the court case regrettably

Since taxation power is a destructive power by its very nature, allowing governments to tax churches gives them the power to destroy the churches by overtaxation. Because of this, it is considered a violation of the 1st amendment which says "Congress shall make no law ... ...prohibiting the free exercise thereof" and yes I know what I cut out, but due to the sentence structure is isn't aplicable to this clause.

Answer 3

The idea of taxing churches is absurd. Taxing a church would be an encroachment on the exercise of religion. Like the other user said, churches are non profit.

Answer 4

It might be construed as preventing the free exercise thereof.

Besides which, a church is essentially a non-profit entity. They aren't there to make money.

Answer 5

Separation of church and state is a political and legal doctrine which states that government and religious institutions are to be kept separate and independent of one another. The term most often refers to the combination of two principles: secularity of government and freedom of religious exercise.