ONCE WE'VE TRANSITIONED TO A PURELY CONSUMPTION-BASED TAX REGIME...:

Conservatives will almost certainly oppose any effort to eliminate tax exemptions for churches. And liberals have every reason to join them in opposition.

Since 1954, section 508c of the Internal Revenue Code has stipulated that churches are automatically tax-exempt under section 503c3 as non-profit enterprises. That's why, legally, they don't have to pay federal income taxes, why those who donate money to churches are allowed to deduct those donations from their own taxable income, and why states and municipalities typically mirror these federal exemptions. The rationale behind granting such exemptions to non-profits (including churches) is that they are presumed to contribute to the common good in ways that for-profit enterprises do not, by engaging in charitable and philanthropic activities.

But it's important to recognize that the tax exemption for churches goes back much further than 1954, and even before the imposition of the permanent federal income tax in 1913. Churches have been exempt from paying taxes from the beginning of the country, and long before the law or any government agency recognized them as "non-profit" organizations. Churches were exempted because they were presumed to play the vitally important social role -- a role essential to self-government -- of inculcating moral virtue in citizens.

That might sound quaint to our cynical, hyper-modern ears. Some of the most secular among us may even think that this thumb on the scale in favor of encouraging faith smacks of the government "establishing" religion.

But of course the First Amendment doesn't just preclude a religious establishment. It also protects religious "free exercise," and it is on those grounds that the elimination of tax exemptions for churches should be opposed by all Americans, liberal and conservative alike.

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