Nicholas Alcalde

Research Project Proposal

For this report I decided to examine and question the law that states that
churches are exempt from paying both income and property taxes. More
specifically, I will be looking at the income of megachurches. These extremely large
churches can accommodate up to 15000 members and are quite common within
the evangelical Christian faith. I wanted to give a closer look into these churches
because some of them are averaging around 6.5 million in income per year. Yet
despite such high incomes these churches dont pay a single dollar of income or
property tax. Proponents of church tax exemption argue that the exemptions keep
the federal government out of church finances thus upholding the constitutional law
of separation of church and state. However opponents argue that churches having
special tax exemptions is a privilege, not a constitutional right. The latter is the
argument that I will be basing my report on.
Problem: Larger churches receiving millions of dollars in annual income, yet being
exempt from any income or property taxes. This is an issue because these
institutions are being given a privilege because of the social work they do, yet other
institutions that do social work are not given these exemptions.
Objectives: Rather than having an income and property tax imposed on all
churches, I would instead propose to only tax the churches in the top 10 percent in
annual income. Mainly targeting these so called megachurches.
Solution: My solution would serve as a medium for both sides of this argument.
While my solution proposes that only 10 percent of churches get taxed, it is
targeting the wealthiest churches that are receiving more income than they
probably should be. It will also serve as an incentive for other churches to be less
concerned with income.
Qualifications: I decided to research this topic after reading several articles about
the absurd amount of money some churches are bringing in. It led to me reading
further into the topic and uncovering enough information to write about it for this
project.
Cost: A solution to this issue would cost nothing, as it would only be collecting funds
that it previously wasnt.

Source Links:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/21/religion.mega.church.christ

ian/
http://churchesandtaxes.procon.org/

http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?sid=3645b543-96b6-492189701681cff39e24%40sessionmgr4001&vid=0&hid=4208&bdata=JnNpdGU9Z
Whvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=rfh&AN=ATLA0000964731