We would all lose if churches were taxed! Errant nonsense!
All too often we see, churches conducting commercial operations using volunteers, and in a tax free setting.
In too many cases they compete for market share with ordinary family run enterprises, which have to pay wages, company tax, payroll tax, land tax and have I missed anything?
It is said, if the Vatican was to sell its mountains of hoarded treasure, it could feed the entire hungry of the world for several years.
Churches have for centuries been the beneficiaries of wills and testaments, and own significant property holdings!
How many times do we hear, where a community, through its own funds raising/voluntary labor, have built a church/school/orphanage, only to see it sold years down the track, with the money leaving the district, to swell the coffers of a central diocese?
Look, people should be free to give charity, always providing,it isn't consumed in various administration fees!
The good Samaritan didn't need to go through a money consuming middle man, but gave his timely assistance in the first person.
Mormon priests work at real jobs through the week, completely support themselves, and pay tax.
If they can so can others.
And there'd be fewer "idle hands" for the "devil" to tempt?
If we simply jettisoned all our current tax laws and collection methodologies, and replaced all that convoluted complexity, with a stand alone unavoidable expenditure tax, nobody, not even the ultra rich (sham) churches like Scientology, could avoid paying a fair share!
Churches currently pay some unavoidable tax, fuel excise, council rates and the GST, which would disappear with my proposed reform; meaning, bona fide churches would be no worse off!
Rhrosty.

Who are you trying to appease Lyle?

Generally agree with most dissenting comments, particularly Squeers and Philip S.

Of course churches should be liable to pay tax like any other corporation, their administration would need to demonstrate that specific activities were charitable to claim tax free status. The easiest way to solve that problem is to separate the Church's religious and charitable functions.

"our constitutional separation of church and state."

Does the anti-establishment provision in the Constitution specifically separate Church and State as the author believes?

I have no objection to the church not being taxed. Providing that:
1/. The taxation office conducts regular audits to ensure that payment going overseas are to charities and NOT to the coffers of the Vatican or the C of E etc.
They do not object like stuck bulls when an atheist organisation claims tax exemption.
Given equal tax brakes what can a religious charity do that a secular charity cannot?

Agreed Atheist. The Vatican is the largest financial institution on the planet. Their chartable works should not be taxed but other profits should be.

The other parasitic cartels that should be taxed are our central banks. Collectively these banks have far more power than the Vatican but pay almost no tax. They create money from nothing and call it our debt.

"If it taxed churches, the church would certainly be funding the state, which would arguably be a breach of our constitutional separation of church and state."

We have constitutional separation of the judicature and the legislature, but judges still pay taxes. You are clutching at straws here.

There is no good reason why churches shouldn't contribute the same proportion of their income and capital gains in taxes as any other institution with employees and premises. If they DO make charitable donations, they can of course claim these as deductions, in the same way as any other taxpayer.