Of Taxes and Churches: The Need to Lift Levies from Beliefs

Recently while perusing the internet I came across the suggestion that churches should be taxed, I then created a poll to see what others thought on the subject. I didn’t see anything immediately the matter with taxing churches so I voted that they should in the poll.

While I originally didn’t see that taxing of church properties as infringing on the separation of church and state, or rather freedom of belief. I have however changed my view regarding such taxation.

I however do not view this as a matter of if you tax one you have to tax them all, for it is possible to draw distinctions into law that would that allow such distinctions even distinctions that would not target churches specifically but still leave them open to taxation.

In considering this matter I considered many things which a church or religious group is not. First a church or religion is not a humanitarian organization. While many churches participate in humanitarian efforts this is not part of the definition of what it means to be a church, and because of the diversity of religion we should not expect them to be such; by law or any other measure.

A church is also not a library or a school. Many churches may run libraries or schools but like the humanitarian organizations this is not part of what it means to be a church or religion. Libraries and schools are places where one my go to receive education on many subjects while a church is only a place and organization that facilitates devotion to one mythos or another.

Finally we come to what a church is. A church simply administers the religion that its practitioners believe in. The question is then, how does taxing a church interfere with freedom of belief? Cannot people still believe in a mythos regardless of their churches taxpaying status? The answer came as I pondered the consequences of subjugating a church to taxes though the night.

Though a large church would likely deal with taxes well enough, a small church may be utterly crushed by even a light tax. Now the purpose of a church is for people to practice their beliefs which they must be free and to hold up their beliefs as an alternative world view those of people around them. However if a church disappears because of a tax burden then the devotees that practice the religion of that church have lost a needed facility to fulfill their beliefs. This is especially distressing to people whose beliefs were specific to their small group and cannot find a place for their devotion elsewhere.

Also if small churches were to fail under the burden of taxes large churches would overrun the land and people would be hard pressed to find an alternative spiritual belief system to what the larger churches have to offer. This would make it difficult for people who are not satisfied with a “main stream” religion to explore other religions because places and organizations for practice would not be available for investigation thus diminishing diversity of belief and thought. Therefore in my view freedom of belief requires that organizations practicing those beliefs be free from tax to insure that the place and organization that facilitate the belief is available to those who would choose to believe without the crushing burden of tax.