rehctub, The Church are the members who meet in buildings. Every honest member of a church has paid tax on his / her income and there is no charitable exemption on their income. The members have paid tax on their income.

Too right Rusty, and what's more, that exclusion site is no longer available to a pax paint entity for purchase, which generally means the prices for remaining lots are inflated due to lower supply. What happens in the church should stay in the church.

Joseph, are you suggesting that a donation of more than $2 for a charity is tax deductible, yet one for a church is not?

God I hate spell check!

rehctub,
The Church is the people who pool their resources to build buildings for services, there is NO charitable exemptions given to members who choose to contribute to its funding. Members have paid tax on this money as income. Churches own a very small proportion of and town development. What puts the price of land up are developers, location of shopping centers, Clubs and transport hubs. Most Churches today prefer to buy land out of town to allow development and parking. In the Canberra development there was only one area in each suburb allocated for a Church building. This was done at the planning stage and was not done by any Church. They were located nearby to town Centers because of parking.

Josephus, I think you are forgetting what would be one of the main income streams for churches and that is legacies. I read on one American Catholic website the claim that "you can take it with you" by leaving it to the Church!

Now think about how many people have no children, it is quite a large% of the population. Catholic palliative care is a large industry, with many a believer hoping for a ticket to heaven, so income from legacies is how the churches accumulate so much real estate and such valuable real estate.

Yabby, perhaps your parents might leave you a legacy after probate, any gifts given by a member to the common good of members is not exempt from probate. Should you also then pay tax on that as income?