Churches usually don’t have to pay property taxes. The IRS consider a house of worship a nonprofit cause. But some congregations don’t meet in church buildings these days. So, guess what? The IRS is reexamining this. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.
Churches usually don’t have to pay property taxes. The IRS consider a house of worship a nonprofit cause. But some congregations don’t meet in church buildings these days. So, guess what? The IRS is reexamining this. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.
Uh, the IRS doesn’t have anything to do with property taxes — it deals with Federal [i]income[/i] taxation, to which church with significant non-religious or business income are already subject.
As for property taxes, in several states counties have been putting church property not used primarily for “religious purposes” on the tax rolls for years. I recall after the passage of Proposition 13 in California some aggressive County Assessors even attempted to place church parking lots on the tax rolls, though the Legislature quickly clarified legal definitions to prevent that from happening.
#1
Exactly right. A poorly researched and worded story. Sheesh.
w.w.
A sentimental memory regarding the absence of separation of the religious and secular. At a crossroads in the middle of (at the time) nowhere in agricultural Arizona, a hand lettered sign proclaimed the building to be the “Laveen Pentecostal Church of Christ and Allied Pump Service”.