Amendment No. 2 Removes Protection for Churches, Non-Profits from Property Tax

By Woody Jenkins, editor St. George Leader

 On March 29, four constitutional amendments will be considered by voters statewide. Amendment No. 2 has a poison pill: It removes constitutional protection against property taxes for most church property and all nonprofit organizations. 

If Amendment No. 2 passes, property tax exemptions for churches and nonprofit organizations will be determined by the Louisiana Legislature.  The only things that would continue to be protected against property taxes would be the church sanctuary, the parsonage, and a seminary for the training of ministers. All other exemptions could be repealed by a 2/3rds vote of the Legislature without a further vote of the people.  

The power to impose property taxes would be handed over to the Legislature, instead of enshrined in the Louisiana Constitution. 

The administration of Gov. Jeff Landry says, “Oh, the Legislature will never vote to tax churches!”

Really?  Then why are they trying to take the constitutional protection for churches and non-profits out of the Louisiana Constitution?

That is the question that has not been answered.

What Makes You Think They Read the Bills?  We have a real crisis in our state, and the No. 1 crisis is not crime or roads or blight or taxes or flooding. 

The biggest crisis is, we have a Legislature that doesn’t read the bills.  So anything is possible!

When you have people making laws who do not read and study what they’re voting on, there is no way to predict what they will do. 

The reality is, only a handful of legislators ever read long complicated bills.  It takes two or three hours a day of homework for a legislator to read and understand the bills during the regular session.  If he doesn’t do that, he is at the mercy of the lobbyists, staff, other legislators, and the governor to tell him how to vote.  He is a pawn because he really doesn’t know.

The passage of Amendment No. 2 through the Louisiana Legislature is a prime example of that. 

This 115-page bill contains many very diverse propositions, some good and some bad. Despite its complexity and far-reaching consequences, it was passed through the legislature in only a few days.  Undoubtedly, the intent was to avoid the kind of thorough scrutiny that any major change in the state Constitution deserves.  You can be sure virtually no one in the Legislature read the bill!

Something else. The Louisiana Constitution requires that each bill contain only a “single object.”  That is to prevent what happens in Congress where they pass bills that are 1,000 or more pages long. No one reads or understands those bills except bureaucrats who write them.  

The U. S. Constitution does not include the “single object” rule, which is why Congress is able to throw countless diverse subjects into one bill.  Our Louisiana Constitution includes the “single object” rule to prevent legislators and voters from being forced to vote for bad things in order to get something good tucked away in the bill.  

Amendment No. 2 blatantly violates the “single object” rule.  It contains something very bad — bad enough to require us to vote against the entire thing — a poison pill!

Look carefully at the language of Amendment No. 2 as it relates to churches and non-profits. 

Only three things would have constitutional protection from  property taxes under Amendment No. 2. One is the church sanctuary, a second is the parsonage, and third is a seminary for the training of people for the ministry. 

Only those three things would be protected by the constitution, and those have to be used exclusively for religious purposes. 

Throughout the history of our state, nonprofit organizations including churches have always been exempt from property taxes. They have been protected in our constitution and have never been taxed.

However, under Amendment No. 2, that constitutional protection would be removed, and the Legislature could repeal the exemptions.

What’s currently protected by the Louisiana Constitution is all land and buildings owned by any nonprofit organization including a church if it is operated for religious, charitable, health, welfare or educational purposes. That organization has to be approved by the federal government as exempt from federal taxes under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. 

From a practical standpoint, what would the repeal of Louisiana’s current constitutional protection mean? Here are some examples: 

• Catholic High, St. Joseph Aca-demy, Parkview, Dunham, and all other private and Christian schools would all lose their constitutional protection against property taxes. 

• The Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts, United Way and all other nonprofit organizations would lose their constitutional protection against property taxes. 

• Any church property such as a family center, gym, ballpark, conference center, and land itself owned by a church would lose constitutional protection, with the exceptions of the house of worship, parsonage, and seminary.

When someone says the Legislature will never get a 2/3rds vote to tax churches, I ask, “How do you know that?  They got a 2/3rds vote to put this on the ballot!”

Why are they doing this?

I ask, “How can you tell me what a future governor or Legislature will do?  You don’t even know who will be elected, much less how they will vote.”

The truth is, we only know two things:

1. Our current state Constitution strongly protects churches and other non-profits from property taxes.

2. Amendment No. 2 would take away that constitutional protection entirely for all non-profits and for churches except for three specific things on the church campus

Churches and non-profits will be at the mercy of the Legislature.

We can’t predict what politicians will do or why.  We don’t know if they will read the bill.  We don’t know if they may be trying to get a new bridge or a job for their brother in law or trade their vote for support for another bill.  We just don’t know what might motivate a politician when a matter this serious comes before them.

However, I will tell you what the politician will tell you!

He will say one of two things: 

1. Oh, I didn’t know that was in the bill!  I would have never voted for it if I had known that!  or

2. Oh, I hated to vote for that bill but you know how bad we need that bridge the governor promised us!

I recently visited Life Tabernacle Church to better understand what Amendment No. 2 would allow to be taxed and what would still have constitutional protection.  It was very interesting.

How one church would be affected. Life Tabernacle has 41 acres on the corner of Hooper and Blackwater roads. The sanctuary and parsonage occupy about two acres of the campus and would be protected.  Everything else would be subject to property taxes.

As we walked around, I saw the things that could be taxed:

• The fleet of 50 buses used in the bus ministry. 

• Offices

• The Family Center

• The gymnasium 

• The 5800-seat conference center

• Out buildings used for Sunday school and meetings

• The baseball and softball diamonds used for recreation. 

Out of 105,000 ft.² under roof, only about 19,000 ft.² would have constitutional protection. 

Since Amendment No. 2 passed the Legislature, I’ve talked to many people who say churches and other charitable groups should pay taxes just like everyone else! 

Imagine that!

Churches and charitable organizations provide incalculable benefits to the people of our state.

Do you really think that for-profit organizations will provide all the services that non-profits do? And also pay taxes for doing it? 

There’s never been any history of that. For-profit businesses have a mission. That mission is to provide goods or services and earn a profit.

The for-profit model does not typically include the activities of churches providing for the spiritual needs of people, the outreach to people in the community with great physical needs, or the necessity for schools and other charitable work.  

The philosophy of “everybody should pay property taxes” will result in nobody providing the help we rely on churches and non-profits to provide.  We will be taxing something that in a great many cases will no longer exist.

If you are a conservative, you don’t want government providing all these services.  You want the private sector to provide them.  

Over the past 60 years, the government has taken over the role of the father with disastrous results. If this passes, the government will take over the role of the church. You can predict the results.

Taxing churches and non-profits is a liberal idea that wants everything to be done by government! Don’t call yourself a conservative if you favor taxing churches and non-profits, because you’re not.

How many more churches will close if this passes?  How many more non-profits will go out of business if you impose property taxes on them? 

On March 29, Louisiana voters will go to polls and make a decision of great importance.

Please join me in telling the media, church leaders, elected officials, friends and neighbors that Amendment No. 2 must be defeated.