The usual argument that Church people make is that all of the money put into a Church was already taxed, when the church members earned it, so that taxing it again would be seen as double taxation.
Why pick on churches and not the huge corporations who pay many THOUSANDS of so-called professionals full going salaries and more?
Lutheran Social Services is the largest employer of social workers in the world, paying them all as if they were professionals even if they are not licensed social workers.
The chain of command (management pyramid) gets paid six figure incomes.
The CEO makes big bucks.
Yet the whole shebang can be a ""NON-PROFIT"".
In most larger communities there are DOZENS of ""NON-PROFITS"" spun off from the government social services agencies, often contracting with the government social services agencies.
The ones I am talking about are NOT what you could call charitable organizations. Not in the least.
Again, considerable numbers of people get somewhat large paychecks for doing what they loosely call "work".
I see the social work and social services NON-PROFITS as bigger legalized tax fraud than churches.
I think tax exemption should be reserved for true charities, not companies with massive PAYROLLS.