Want to Pay for National Health Care? Tax the Churches

U.S. President Barack Obama has made reforming the American healthcare system a top priority of his young administration. He's told the members of congress, the media, and anyone else who will listen that he wants a bill to cover the uninsured and lower costs on his desk to sign by the first week of August. Not surprisingly, most Republican members of the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as their cheerleaders on radio and television, are dead-set against the reforms Obama's pushing. But they aren't the only ones - several Democrats have voiced concerns, too.

This is nothing to worry about. In fact, it's something to be grateful for. This is how representative democracy is supposed to work. Should the Democratic members of congress fall into step behind Obama simply because they are all members of the same political party? Of course not. And anyway, from what I've heard the major stumbling block isn't cutting healthcare costs, or ensuring that private insurers will be able to compete against the much demonized (by the right-wing, at least) public option, but rather how to pay for these very expensive proposals.

I support the effort to establish national healthcare in the United States. I find it embarrassing that we don't have it already, since most of our allies have guaranteed health coverage to their citizens for decades. But it's also nice to see members of congress (Democrats, no less) trying to exercise a little fiscal responsibility. Let's be honest - it's not as if Barack hasn't spent a ton of money already, and he's only six months into the job. The massive cost and potential negative consequences of healthcare reform are reasons to be careful and do things right, not reasons to scrap the whole thing and move on to something else. This needs to be done, and now's as good a time as any. It'll only cost more later.

Speaking of the cost, I think I've got that one licked. Partially, anyway. I've read reports of one proposal that would raise income taxes on those making over $350,000 a year in order to pay for national healthcare. Better them than those making over $35,000, but still, incomes taxes strike me as high enough, thank you. Then there's always the smokers, we might yet squeeze a few more cents on the dollar out of them. I have no problem with that. I'm all for the so-called sin taxes - I say tax the hell out of cigarettes and alcohol, and legalize weed and tax that to the Moon, too. Potential customers will either pony up and pay the higher prices, thus generating more revenue to fund government programs, or be forced to give up a harmful, self-destructive habit. What is the down-side?

But I'm wandering. Jacking up taxes on high income or smokes might not be necessary (or as necessary, at least) if we did something else first - something about, oh, 233 years overdue; something everyone who bothered reading the title to this piece already knows and has been patiently waiting for me to mention since the first sentence. How do we pay for universal healthcare? I know where we should start: tax the churches.

Churches in the United States are exempt from taxation. Really exempt - under most circumstances, they aren't even required to file a tax return. Charitable organizations - many of whom are liable for certain taxes - are required to file a detailed annual return documenting how much money they've taken in and what they've spent it on, even if they owe no taxes. Why should churches be treated any differently?

Here's my suggestion: remove the special exemption for churches, entirely. For one thing, we need the money. For another thing, I think it might be unconstitutional. Here's a quote from the inside cover of "Tax Guide for Churches and Religious Organizations," a pamphlet published by the Internal Revenue Service: "Congress has enacted special tax laws applicable to churches, religious organizations, and ministers in recognition of their unique status in American society and of their rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States."

Sounds an awful lot like respecting an establishment of religion to me, and congress isn't supposed to do that. Our founding document says so.

Obviously I'm saying this because I am openly and stridently antireligious. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good idea, or that I'm not willing to give the churches a fair shake. They deserve a fair shake - the same one offered by the tax code to charitable organizations. Under the current law, churches aren't required to file a request with the IRS for tax exempt status. They ought to be. Like a charity, they should be required to fill out the proper paperwork (Form 1023, according to the pamphlet), to formally request a tax exemption as a charitable organization. Like a charity, they should be required under law to keep detailed financial records and to file annual tax returns informing the government of their income and expenditures.

And if a church doesn't feel like doing all that, or its request for an exemption is turned down, or it's found to have been spending its money on less-than-charitable things (like, say, a fancy new house for the pastor, or sending members off on those hateful mission trips to wave Bibles in the faces of citizens of developing countries), we get to tax it. All of it. Everything - its income, its assets, its transactions, its property. Sales tax, unemployment tax, payroll tax, Medicare and Social Security taxes - all the hoops charities and small businesses have had to jump through, all that stuff the rest of us have had to deal with all our lives, it's all waiting for the churches, synagogues, mosques, and miscellaneous messianic cults of America! Oh god, how I envy them.

Just as with the aforementioned sin taxes, I see no downside to this. Churches that want to qualify for tax exemptions will have to operate as legitimate charities, which hopefully means more soup kitchens, more cold weather shelters for the homeless, more of many kinds of relief for the poor, and fewer ever-expanding mega-churches using collected donations to feather their own nests by building gratuitous facilities and offering exclusive services that only benefit their members. And churches that don't qualify as charitable organizations get taxed to high heaven alongside the rest of us to help pay for much needed government services, so either way the world winds up a better place.

This is not a new idea, I should tell you. I'd like to claim I thought it up all by myself, but it's such a no-brainer that even I was bound to stumble on it at some point, albeit a little later than others. There's an excellent article on the subject at Daylight Atheism, published almost three years ago. Going back a bit farther, writer and pioneering feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in 1880, "I cannot see any good reason why wealthy churches and a certain amount of property of the clergy should be exempt from taxation, while every poor widow in the land, struggling to feed, clothe, and educate a family of children, must be taxed on the narrow lot and humble home." The lady has a point. A few years earlier in 1875, Ulysses Grant, then serving as President of the United States, called the tax exemption of churches "an evil" that "will probably lead to great trouble in our land," and said, "I would suggest the taxation of all property equally, whether church or corporation."

Some of the U.S.A.'s Founding Fathers supported taxing churches, including Ben Franklin (the one who flew the kite) and James Madison (the one who wrote the Constitution). I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that a few major American churches, including the United Methodists and the Unitarian Universalists, have expressed the opinion that taxing churches would only be fair. Good on them.

For more information on this subject, check out taxthechurches.org, and also this detailed and tightly argued piece from the Humanist Society of Gainesville.