Churches are granted unfair tax advantages over secular nonprofits.
For example, churches are exempt from paying property taxes and are allowed to exclude housing expenses from reportable income, a favor denied to secular charitable organizations.
There are many cases where churches have in fact illegally made use of their tax exemptions by taking their contributions and earnings for individual purposes (i.e., buying planes for personal use).
The IRS has very lax qualifications on what is a “church,” making it very easy for any organization to gain tax-exemption by claiming itself as a “religious organization.” This makes cases of fraud, crime and scams highly probable.
Churches are declared exempt from taxes if they are not action organizations, meaning they do not attempt to influence legislation as a part of its activities in any way. However, some churches have become influential in certain facets of legislation such as abortion and gay marriage.
Additionally, The Freedom From Religion Foundation is currently involved in a lawsuit with the federal government over the unfair tax advantage granted to “ministers of the gospel.”
These special tax breaks for religious organizations go to show the governmental preference that exists on religion over non religion.
