Most of the value of churches is in real estate. I imagine a lot of the Mainline protestant denominations (typically the most liberal), who have low and declining attendance, would be hit the hardest as they own a lot of historic downtown properties worth in the tens of millions.
Conservative Protestant, and Catholic churches own a lot of real estate too, but they have bigger congregations.
If you have a $10,000,000 property that owes 1.5% property taxes a year, that's about $150,000 in taxes every year.
If you have 15 families earning $100,000 a year who each tithe (or 30 families earning $50,000 a year), then you break even on those taxes (you still have the rest of your church expenses to pay, of course).
I'm not aware of the rate of tithing and attendance in Conservative Protestant, and Catholic churches, but I'm guessing it's higher than in mainline Protestant Churches. I imagine non-mainline churches also have a wider portfolio of real estate; they probably own their own share of prime real estate in downtown city centers, but most of their churches are likely dispersed in suburban and rural areas with much lower value land.
My hypothesis (confidence: 75% sure, but haven't done all the necessary math) is that if you were to push for a full repeal of church property tax exemptions, Megachurches, Conservative Protestants, and Catholics would be very upset about it, but would probably be able to weather the storm, and Mainline protestant churches and other minority religious organizations with high value urban property and low relative attendance would essentially be wiped out overnight.
In short -- if you're a liberal, be careful what you wish for.
Your entire scenario here is based around a local (state and county) tax, and has nothing to do with the federal tax code the parent article is concerned with.
Most of the value of churches is in real estate. I imagine a lot of the Mainline protestant denominations (typically the most liberal), who have low and declining attendance, would be hit the hardest as they own a lot of historic downtown properties worth in the tens of millions.
Conservative Protestant, and Catholic churches own a lot of real estate too, but they have bigger congregations.
If you have a $10,000,000 property that owes 1.5% property taxes a year, that's about $150,000 in taxes every year.
If you have 15 families earning $100,000 a year who each tithe (or 30 families earning $50,000 a year), then you break even on those taxes (you still have the rest of your church expenses to pay, of course).
I'm not aware of the rate of tithing and attendance in Conservative Protestant, and Catholic churches, but I'm guessing it's higher than in mainline Protestant Churches. I imagine non-mainline churches also have a wider portfolio of real estate; they probably own their own share of prime real estate in downtown city centers, but most of their churches are likely dispersed in suburban and rural areas with much lower value land.
My hypothesis (confidence: 75% sure, but haven't done all the necessary math) is that if you were to push for a full repeal of church property tax exemptions, Megachurches, Conservative Protestants, and Catholics would be very upset about it, but would probably be able to weather the storm, and Mainline protestant churches and other minority religious organizations with high value urban property and low relative attendance would essentially be wiped out overnight.
In short -- if you're a liberal, be careful what you wish for.