Taxing the ‘infidel and the atheist’
Projecting those numbers out to the entire U.S. population is tricky. The number and proportion of religiously exempt properties varies by county; property values and tax rates vary across the country, and the value of religiously exempt properties varies as well.
But if one assumed that the exempt taxes are uniform across the country based on the information derived from Manatee County – which, to be clear, they’re not – local and state governments forgo roughly $6.9 billion in tax revenue annually by exempting religions from paying property taxes.
This is just an estimate – it is nearly impossible to know the actual amount, and it may be that the true figure is even higher. If churches and other places of worship were required to file annual financial reports, researchers could use that information to evaluate the financial health of religious entities in the U.S.
It would also give a clearer understanding as to how much, in Twain’s words, “the infidel and the atheist and the man without religion are taxed to make up the deficit in the public income” caused by the exemption for churches.
With such information more readily available, the public would find it much easier to discuss the merits of a hashtag campaign like #TaxTheChurches.
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Ryan Cragun, University of Tampa
This article originally appeared here.
