Taxing the Church

Steven Green, Reading Religion Edward Zelinsky's Taxing the Church is a comprehensive, informative, and balanced contribution about a perennial church-state issue, one that waxes and wanes in controversy. While written primarily for an audience of law and policy makers, it is sufficiently approachable for a lay audience. Indeed, clergy and scholars of religion-in-society may find it a useful resource, even if they skip some of the legal discussions.


Zelinsky raises questions about existing theories that are so wedded to the 'rhetoric' of separation that they cannot account for the inevitable entanglements of church and state in the area of tax law. The result is a challenge to anyone who sees simple bright lines in church-state relations... Taxing the Church demonstrates that we can talk about the church-state relationship in ways that are both principled and serious about the need for trade-offs in a messy area
of law." Kevin R. den Dulk, Journal of Church and State


Comprehensive in its scope, yet nuanced in its analysis, Taxing the Church deftly explores the tensions between church and state in the tax context and offers a pragmatic path towards an appropriate resolution of these tensions by focusing on the question of church/state 'enforcement entanglement.' In an era of political and social polarization, in which church/state conflicts often generate more heat than light, Zelinsky has provided us with precisely what
the debate needs: a commendably balanced, characteristically thoughtful, and highly original elucidation of the problem of taxing religious institutions."
Walter Hellerstein, Distinguished Research Professor, Francis Shackelford Professor of Taxation, University of Georgia School of Law




Advocates on both sides of the religious exemption divide would be well served by reading this book and pondering its arguments.

Edward A. Zelinsky is the Morris and Annie Trachman Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University where he lectures on tax law. He is a graduate of Yale College, Yale Law School, and the Yale Graduate School. Professor Zelinsky's articles have appeared in the nation's most well-known legal journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, and the Columbia Law Review. He is the author of The Origins of the Ownership Society: How the Defined Contribution Paradigm Changed America (Oxford University Press, 2007), and he is a regular contributor to the OUP blog.

Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: The Federal Constitutional Law on Taxation and Religion A) Murdock and Follett B) Walz C) Texas Monthly D) Jimmy Swaggart Ministries E) Nyquist and Mueller F) Lee G) Conclusion Chapter Two: State Constitutions on Religion and Taxation A) State constitutional exemptions from property taxation B) Interpreting "church" for property tax exemption purposes C) The property tax status of parsonages D) Other state constitutional provisions E) Conclusion Chapter Three: The Internal Revenue Code and Religious Institutions A) The Federal Income Tax B) The Federal Estate and Gift Taxes C) The FICA and Self-employment Taxes D) The Federal Unemployment Tax E) The Federal Health Mandates for Individuals and Employers F) The Code's procedural provisions relative to churches G) Church retirement plans H) Conclusion Chapter Four: State Tax Statutes and Religious Exemptions A) Property Tax Exemption Statutes B) Sales Taxes: Overview C) States subjecting churches to sales taxes as both buyers and sellers D) States exempting churches on sales taxes as both buyers and sellers E) States exempting churches as buyers but not as sellers F) States exempting churches as sellers but not as buyers G) Church sales tax exemption tied to IRS confirmation of income tax exemption H) Sales tax: Summary I) State Income Taxes J) Real Estate Transfer Taxes K) State Unemployment Taxes L) Conclusion Chapter Five: Untangling Entanglement A) The Inevitability of Tax-Related Entanglement: Borderline Entanglement and Enforcement Entanglement in The Courts B) Reducing Borderline Entanglement Through Broader Exemptions or No Exemptions C) Enforcement Entanglement, Property Taxes and General Income Taxes D) Sales, Payroll and Real Estate Conveyance Taxes: Less Prone to Enforcement Entanglement E) The Entangling Taxation of Unrelated Business Incomes F) The Entangling Trade-offs of Unemployment Compensation G) Entanglement, Subsidization, Tax Policy Criteria and the Normative Tax Base H) Why Entanglement Matters I) Conclusion Chapter Six: Parsonages, Parsonage Allowances and the Religious Exemptions From Social Security Taxes and the Health Care Mandate A) The Property Tax Status of Parsonages B) The Income Tax Treatment of Parsonages and Parsonage Allowances: Code Sections 107 and 119 C) Repealing Section 107: Swapping Borderl