A Note on Tax Exemptions for Churches

[qazplm135]

76. control is absolutely the issue

it's the whole focus of the free exercise clause. It's the other side of the coin from the establishment clause.
It's the entire reason why we don't tax churches for doing church things.

We don't not tax churches to "subsidize" them. We don't tax churches because taxation means control. I can tax one church more than the other. Or I can tax churches more than non-churches, and I can take church property if they don't pay their taxes (and I can be selective in how I do it).

It's not because churches are a social good, it's because of the 1st Amendment.

McCullogh v. Maryland (1816), “The power to tax implies the power to destroy.” “All subjects over which the sovereign power of a State extends are objects of taxation, but those over which it does not extend are, upon the soundest principles, exempt from taxation. This proposition may almost be pronounced self-evident.”

It wasn't a case about religion, but it was a case about the power to tax equaling government control, and being exempt from taxation being free of said control. That's a long-standing principle. You can disagree with it, but it's not new.

A much more recent, direct case: Walz vs. Tax Commission of the City of New York (1970) a tax exemption for churches "creates only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state and far less than taxation of churches. [An exemption] restricts the fiscal relationship between church and state, and tends to complement and reinforce the desired separation insulating each from the other."

I'm not just making stuff up. This is basic con law. Now one can argue that the establishment clause is more important than the free expression clause, thus one should err on the side of not doing the former (thus control is less important and it's more important that churches get zero special treatment at all). But most of our history has been trying to balance the two clauses. Thus, why a church could lose it's tax exempt status if it starts being political. I am not sure I agree with that to be honest. If an African-American church wants to preach liberal politics in Georgia, why can't it? But that's a different discussion.