Catholic and other churches have a lot of money. Why not tax them?
It's not that churches are excluded from taxation, it is that they are excluded from all effects of lawmaking because of religion. The laws made can only apply to non-church entities.
You can apply building and safety and occupancy codes to the structure, you can apply income tax to the attendees, et c, but it says right on the tin: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion".
These rules come from the US Code § 501 (c), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/501
> (3) [...] religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals [...]
I am not a constitutional scholar, nor am I even American, but that doesn't say to me that religions can't be taxed, so long as it's applied equally across all religious organisations. If they are taxed like businesses, they are still allowed to be practised, surely? And there is no 'establishment' of an official church or religion by taxing all equally.
Arguably, that just means you can't pass laws that are directed towards / against religion. Not that religion is above the law. See Lemon Test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_v._Kurtzman#Lemon_test
According to this interpretation, church taxes (like the ones still present in some European countries) are unlawful, as is denying churches ability to gather their own donations. But churches still should pay same taxes that apply to other NGOs.
It's a subtle difference. Churchgoers don't get a free pass to break the law. The establishment simply is immune to regulation of any kind attempted to be placed upon the organization itself by congress.
It's not obvious that this is what was meant by 1st amendment. Other interpretation is that congress simply can't make laws that apply exclusively to religious establishments.
EDIT: I must add that the interpretation you mentioned is undoubtedly the "canonical" one in public's mind, so the situation is unlikely to change soon.
This interpretation would be compatible with taxing churches (as long as they are all taxed equally).
It was certainly my view before I studied the topic.
It turns out that congress is not allowed to legislate religious establishments at all.
Are you arguing that my congregation should be immune from any restrictions being placed on us for worshipping our god by slowly killing everyone around us who does not share our view , because we operate outside of the law ?
What Congress isn't allowed to do is pass a law stating "no religious organizations in the US are allowed to practice human sacrifice." But you still wouldn't be able to appease Xanakto the Moon God because Congress is still allowed to make murder illegal in general, just not exclusively in the context of religious practice.
And, ironically, the reason religious organizations are included at all is the belief that taxing them would provide a means by which governments could interfere with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
So that means that the government is forbidden from making laws that favor a particular religion over others, not from making any laws that constrain or affect religious groups and institutions.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause, from which, "The Establishment Clause is a limitation placed upon the United States Congress preventing it from passing legislation forcing an establishment of religion, broadly making it illegal for the government to promote theocracy or promote a specific religion with taxes."
Often this means that not only are they the official church, but that tax money is actually used to support them -- even tax money from people who don't belong to that church.
The Founders did not like paying taxes to churches they didn't belong to, and who can blame them for that?
Also interestingly, at the time the Constitution was enacted, some of the states did have established churches. The Constitution didn't do anything about that, as it only affected the Federal government.
The First Amendment has since been "incorporated" (by means of the Fourteenth Amendment) in such a way that states are also prohibited from establishing churches nowadays.
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/t...
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" Part 2 would be the key aspect not part one. The question would be whether the free exercise is inhibited by tax on institutions or whether religion is intangible and separate from institutions and thus still free practice is available. I'm not sure how it would lean but a somewhat similar concept is tax on guns which is legal, though the wording is different.
However I thought that it is not just that religions are not taxed, but rather that non-profits are not taxed and religions are just a special type of non-profit.
on edit: wrote it's instead of its.
Yeah sure, that's technically correct, but laws can be changed. Including the constitution, with the prime example being your source, the first amendment.