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President Trump, reiterating the position he took during the presidential campaign, has recently reaffirmed his pledge to "get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment," the provision of the Internal Revenue Code which prohibits tax-exempt institutions from participating in political campaigns. The Code also bars tax-exempt institutions, including churches, from substantial lobbying activities.Rather than the blanket repeal of the Johnson Amendment proposed by President Trump, I argue for a statutory safe harbor for the internal communications of churches. This limited safe harbor would protect in-house church discussions from both Section 501(c)(3)'s ban on substantial lobbying and from that section's prohibition on political campaigning. Under this proposed amendment to the Internal Revenue Code, churches, along with other religious and secular tax-exempt institutions, would otherwise remain subject to the Code's bars on campaigning and lobbying. While entanglement considerations counsel greater protection than current law provides for speech within churches, these statutory bars properly deter the diversion of income tax-deductible resources to campaigning and lobbying. My more targeted reform of the Johnson Amendment addresses the legitimate concerns of churches about their First Amendment rights while preventing the tax-exempt sector from becoming a conduit for tax-deductible campaign contributions.

Should the U.S. Supreme Court overrule Quill Corporation v. North Dakota? A careful assessment of the federal political process suggests that the Supreme Court itself should overturn Quill in the Court's role as guardian of the states against federal commandeering. A combination of factors underlay this conclusion: the tactical advantage that Quill bestows in the political process upon the internet and mail order industries, the importance of the states in the structure of federalism, the centrality of sales taxes to the financing of state government, the severe impediment which Quill and its physical presence test impose upon the collection of these taxes, and the unique disadvantages of the states in the federal legislative process. In our system of federalism as it exists today, the states are structurally important but politically disadvantaged. Federal legislators receive no political benefits from helping the states. This contrasts with the political support—votes and campaign contributions—private groups bestow for legislative backing. The Court itself should, despite the force of stare decisis, overturn Quill rather than rely on Congress to abolish the physical presence test which severely hampers the states' collection of their sales taxes in the face of the growth of internet commerce.

This book explores the taxation and exemption of churches and other religious institutions, both empirically and normatively. This exploration reveals that churches and other religious institutions are treated diversely by the federal and state tax systems. Sectarian institutions pay more tax than many believe. In important respects, the states differ among themselves in their respective approaches to the taxation of sectarian entities. Either taxing or exempting churches and other sectarian entities entangles church and state. The taxes to which churches are more frequently subject - federal Social Security and Medicare taxes, sales taxes, real estate conveyance taxes - fall on the less entangling end of the spectrum. The taxes from which religious institutions are exempt - general income taxes, value-based property taxes, unemployment taxes - are typically taxes with the greatest potential for church-state enforcement entanglement. It is unpersuasive to reflexively denounce the tax exemption of religious actors and institutions as a subsidy. Tax exemption can implement the secular, non-subsidizing goal of minimizing church-state enforcement entanglement and thus be regarded as part of a normative tax base. Taxing the church or exempting the church involves often difficult trade-offs among competing and legitimate values. On balance, our federal system of decentralized legislation reasonably make these legal and tax policy trade-offs, though there is room for improvement in particular settings such as the protection of internal church communications and the expansion of the churches' sales tax liabilities. ; https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/faculty-books/1100/thumbnail.jpg

As a matter of both tax policy and constitutional law, it is time to apportion state personal income taxes to eliminate the double taxation of dual residents. Individuals who, for income tax purposes, are residents are two or more states should be taxed along the lines recently proposed by Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton for "snowbirds": As to income with respect to which a state has source jurisdiction, that state should tax such income. As to income which two or more states tax only on the basis of residence, such states should apportion, based on the dual resident's relative presence in each state of residence. This apportioned approach would eliminate the double taxation of dual residents' income and would comport better with modern patterns of residence and mobility. While Minnesota's legislature did not adopt the Dayton proposal, that proposal should provoke reconsideration of the conventional understanding of personal residence for state income tax purposes. The traditional understanding can cause double taxation when an individual is deemed to be a resident of two or more states, each entitled to tax this dual resident's entire income. As a matter of tax policy and constitutional law, the formula advanced by Governor Dayton for Minnesota snowbirds is the proper way to tax all dual residents. As to income with respect to which a state has source jurisdiction because the income arises within the state's geographic boundaries, that state should tax that income, whether or not the taxpayer is a resident of such state. As to income with respect to which two or more states have only residence-based jurisdiction to tax, the states of residence should tax on a proportionate basis, based on the part of the year the dual resident spends in each state. In practice, the income apportioned between states of residence under this approach will typically be dual residents' intangible investment income such as dividends and interest. To eliminate double residence-based taxation of such income, the Dayton formula should, both as a matter of tax policy and of constitutional law, apply to all individuals who are, for tax purposes, residents of two or more states. The Dayton proposal highlights the obsolescence of current tax policy and constitutional norms for states' personal income taxation of residents, norms fashioned for an earlier era. It is time to shift from the traditional personal income tax regime with its increasing possibilities of double residence-based taxation to a system which recognizes multiple states of residence and apportions personal income tax authority among them as to items which are not geographically sourced to the taxing state.

In Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Geithner, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) argues that Code Section 107 and the income tax exclusion that section grants to "minister[s] of the gospel" for parsonage allowances violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This case has important implications for a new federal law mandating that individuals maintain "minimum essential" health care coverage for themselves and their dependents. That mandate contains two religious exemptions. One of these exemptions incorporates a pre-existing religious exemption from the federal self-employment tax. These sectarian exemptions raise the same First Amendment issues as does the Code's exclusion from gross income of clerical housing allowances. I ultimately find unpersuasive the indictment of Section 107 as constitutionally entangling. For the same reasons, I also conclude that the religious exemptions of the Social Security taxes and of the individual health mandate pass First Amendment muster. In the modern world, extensive contact between tax systems and religious institutions is unavoidable. Whether religious entities and actors are taxed or exempted, there are inevitable tensions between the contemporary state and sectarian institutions and their personnel. Whether religious entities and actors are taxed or exempted, there are no disentangling alternatives, just imperfect trade-offs between different forms of entanglement. Thus, Section 107 and the exclusion from gross income it grants to clerical recipients of housing and parsonage allowances are constitutionally permitted, though not constitutionally required, responses to the problems of entanglement inherent in the relationship between modern government and religion. Similarly, the Code's sectarian exemptions from the individual health care mandate and from the FICA and self-employment taxes are acceptable, though not obligatory, means under the First Amendment of managing the inevitable contacts and tensions between the contemporary state and the religious community. However, as a matter of tax policy, the exclusion of Section 107(2) for cash parsonage allowances stands on weaker ground than does the exclusion of Section 107(1) for in-kind housing provided to "minister[s] of the gospel." The taxation of such cash allowances, in contrast to the taxation of housing provided in-kind, does not involve problems of valuation or of taxpayer liquidity and is thus more practicable as a matter of tax policy.