3 Incentive for Abuse

One of the biggest reasons goes beyond their economic impact. When it all boils down to it, the failure to tax churches has been a constant source of abuse time and time again. Like the global financial crisis shows, things spin out of hand when you give one particular sector too much leeway or too much power. For religious institutions to abuse their power is sadly not new to society, and was at one point the single most important reason why the public felt that there needed to be a separation between church and state. The concept of a god often implies that the deity is all-powerful and commits no errors. However, mere mortals commandeer these churches, and we are prone to mistakes and greed as well. Giving them too much power would be a mistake.

It is important to note that most tax laws do not make clear distinctions between real religions and fraudulent religions, if any distinction is made at all. No serious investigations into the religion to determine if it fits the criteria of “valid” religion is ever made. This is because it is essentially tied to our natural right to our own religions, making this type of investigation difficult to conduct. Naturally, more unscrupulous individuals seek to use these types of inefficiencies to facilitate fraudulent crimes and tax evasion. Scandals emerge about institutions that overcharge members to attend or demand portions of member’s income in payment for the religion. More brazenly, religious institutions that advocate a rejection of material wealth or a form of poverty as a cornerstone of their religious mantra are caught with Rolls Royce cars or even private aircraft! If property for religious institutions and churches is tax exempt, how difficult would it be to start your own religion and buy all the property you want for religious reasons? How difficult it would be for a charismatic individual to convince a large number of superstitious people that contributing 1000 USD per person monthly would bring them to Heaven? How difficult a proposition is that given that a similar charismatic individual was able to convince a large number of people to commit mass suicide in the name of a “religious belief” (e.g. Marshall Applewhite). Clearly the propensity for this law to be abused is significant, and results in economic and social ills. Taxation of churches, while may not completely solve the problem, will make it significantly more difficult for fraudulent religions and churches to justify their existence.