MADISON, Wis. — A group of nonbelievers opposed to government preference and favoritism toward religion has filed a lawsuit seeking to have a federal law that allows clergy members tax breaks on living expenses declared unconstitutional.
The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation sued Sept. 13 in federal court in Madison, alleging that allowing ministers to receive tax breaks unavailable to other taxpayers violates both the establishment and equal protection clauses of the United States Constitution.
A federal law passed in 1954 exempts clergy from paying taxes on portions of their income designated as a ministerial housing allowance. It covers the amount actually used to purchase or rent a home, including furnishings and utilities.
The lawsuit claims that in order to enforce the tax law the IRS and Treasury Department must “make sensitive, fact intensive, intrusive and subjective determinations” on religious issues like which activities constitute “religious worship” and whether a member of the clergy is “duly ordained, commissioned or licensed.” Those and other determinations result in “excessive entanglement” between church and state contrary to the Establishment Clause.
Congress passed a law in 2002 to protect and clarify the clergy housing allowance, following a high-profile legal battle between the IRS and “Purpose Driven Life” author Rick Warren.
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