Friday, June 4, 2004

To follow up on recent posts about tax and religion:

• Effect of Colorado Catholic Diocese’s anti-Kerry Letter on its tax exemption (here and here)
• Whether Unitarians constitute a religion for Texas tax purposes (here and here)

Here are some recent developments:

• U.S. Churches Cautious on Politics to Keep Tax Exemptions on NPR’s All Things Considered, featuring reader Steven Sholt (Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C.)
• Bush Campaign Seeks Help from Congregations, NY Times, June 3. Ellen Aprill (Loyola-L.A.) raises an interesting question:

I know from personal experience as president of my synagogue that congregants feel free to distribute material to other members, even after they have been told not to (in our case, the material consisted of fliers for a business put on cars in the parking lot). Assume for a moment that a congregant distributes Bush campaign political material without the endorsement or permission of the church. What do you all think that the church must do or should do in response?