TAXES: Should Places Of Worship Be Taxed?
This is a question I have heard many times, especially on Sundays when I see offering boxes full and big churches building bigger branches.
Should places of worship be taxed? It sounds like a simple question, but when you think about it deeply, it is not simple at all.....my Options:👇
On one side, the argument for taxing them is very strong......Let us be honest, many places of worship today pull in large sums of money. Every Sunday, Friday, Saturday, there is offering, tithe, special seed, thanksgiving, building fund, harvest, and so many other collections. Some big churches make millions in a month. Some mosques and churches own schools, hotels, estates, private jets, and businesses. If a normal business that makes that kind of money pays tax, why should a religious house not pay?
If all that moneey was taxxed, even a small percentagee, it could be of great help to the econommy. That tax moneey could build roads, hospittals, schools, and help the poor.... 🤷The government is always looking for money, and here is a place where money enters every week without tax. In a country like Nigeria where we need money for development, taxing religious houses could bring a lot of revenue. It also feels fair. Why should a small shop owner selling rice pay tax, but a big church that makes ten times more not pay anything?
But on the other side, we must also look at the other side of the coin....
Most places of worship are not big rich churches...... Many are small churches in villages, small mosques in the street, small chapels that barely manage to pay rent. They survive by the little offerings of members. If you tax them, many of them will close down. And those small places do a lot of charity that government does not do. They help orphans, widows, they feed the poor during festivals, they pay school fees for members' children, they settle disputes in the community. They are doing social work. If you tax them, you are taking away the little they use to help society.
Also, how will you even tax them? Religion is not a business. People give willingly to God, not as payment for goods. If government starts taxing that offering, people will feel that their giving to God is now giving to government. That could affect faith itself.
And how will it affect the worship experience? I think it will affect it negatively. If places of worship are taxed, the leaders will transfer the tax burden to members. They will increase offering, increase tithe, create more special programs just to raise money for tax. Worship will start to feel like a business. People will come to church and instead of hearing about God, they will hear about tax targets. The free, peaceful feeling of worship could be lost. People who already complain that churches ask for too much money will stop coming altogether.
For me, I think a middle ground is better. Government should not tax all places of worship. But government should tax the business side of religious organizations. If a church owns a private university that charges high fees, that school should pay tax. If a mosque owns a shopping plaza, that plaza should pay tax. But the actual offerings and tithes inside the worship hall should remain tax exempt.
That way, we help the economy, we ensure fairness, but we also protect genuine worship and charity.
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