Personally, i`d be happy if the Church WERE fully taxed in Europe and elsewhere. Then her bishops et al in those places would be free to speak the Truth without fear of violating some privilege agreement or whatever.
I agree. The tax exemption churches receive binds their ability to preach and speak out about important issues.
Also, church do receive benefits from the government. If one catches fire, the fire department responds to put the fire out even though the church has paid not one cent in local taxes to support the fire department. The same is true for the police department.
The first amendment to the constitution says, “
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”. That is, there shall be no establishment of an official religion nor the suppression of any religion. This freedom, however is not absolute. The Supreme Court has ruled that Native Americans cannot use peyote as part of their sacraments. Religious groups are not allowed to perform animal sacrifices.
If the tax were applied to all churches equally. If, for example, they were all taxed at the corporate tax rate, then I think it could be argued that the government is not promoting one church over another, nor prohibiting one while allowing others to flourish. I think that this could, depending on the composition of the Supreme Court, pass constitutional muster.
The benefits: Churches would be freed from restraints on their preaching about important social issues, and, in particular, endorsing specific candidates for elected office. They would also pay for local services from which they receive direct benefits.
The downside: A portion of the collection would go to the government, instead of being used for ministries and church upkeep. Property taxes would have to be paid on sometimes large tracts of land. This benefits the community, but at the expense of sometimes troubled monasteries and downtown churches.
The charitable deduction for donors could be kept or even expanded, so as to encourage giving to churches and to keep the whole thing revenue-neutral.
All-in-all, I think that the freeing of the voice of the bishops and pastors to preach the authentic Word of God without the restraints now imposed by the government would be worth the additional expense.
Thanks for the Economist link. (The Reuters link I didn’t quite follow the connection to the topic).