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It's the first amendment and separation of church and state. The IRS is fairly certain that if they tried to tax the land chapels are on that the supreme court

It's the first amendment and separation of church and state. The IRS is fairly certain that if they tried to tax the land chapels are on that the supreme court (even the liberal judges) would say it violates church and state separation. Shutting down a church for failure to pay taxes is the end game the courts won't allow, and so where we are basically falls out from that. Now if you run a for-profit child care center out of your chapel and don't pay taxes, that is something the IRS has seized a church for.

jacques_chester 7y ago
This is a slippery-slope argument, assuming judges are automatons who can be iteratively led to violate the separation of church and state. It turns out a lot of them are pretty smart and understand how to treat each case on its own details. Their profession is about picking out exact details to unpack exact consequences, not being swept along by generalities. The basis of the exemption of churchs is due to the historical development of trusts and revenue law, going back at least as far as the Charitable Uses Act in 1601 -- long before the US Constitution was drafted and adopted. Religious purposes were exempted because at the time genuine belief was common. Charitable purposes as a concept therefore has a shared origin across all of the common law countries, including the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and others. But common law is subordinate to new legislation, and so is historical legislation. The reason churches are given a free ride is that nobody wants to pay the incredible political capital it will require to fix this relic.