Politics, Taxes, and the Pulpit: Provocative First Amendment Conflicts

ISBN-13: 9780195388053 / Angielski / Twarda / 2010 / 420 str.

Professor Nina J. Crimm; Professor Laurence H. Winer

Opis

In Politics, Taxes, and the Pulpit, Nina J. Crimm and Laurence H. Winer examine the provocative mix of religion, politics, and taxes involved in the controversy over houses of worship engaging in electoral political speech. The authors analyze the dilemmas associated with federal tax subsidies benefiting nonprofit houses of worship conditioned on their refraining from political campaign speech. The Supreme Court's recent Citizens United decision invalidating federal campaign finance restrictions on corporations' political campaign speech makes the remaining, analogous restrictive tax laws constraining many nonprofit entities all the more singular and problematic, particularly for houses of worship. Crimm and Winer explore the multifaceted constitutional tensions arising from this legal structure and implicating all fundamental values embodied in the First Amendment: free speech and free press, the free exercise of religion, and the avoidance of government establishment of religion. They also examine the history and economics of taxation of houses of worship. The authors conclude that there exists no means of fully resolving the irreconcilable clashes in a constitutionally permissible and politically and socially palatable manner. Nonetheless, Crimm and Winer offer several feasible legislative proposals for reforming tax provisions that likely will generate considerable debate. If Congress adopts the proposed reforms, however, the revised system should substantially ameliorate the disquieting constitutional tensions induced by the current tax laws and curb the growing emotionally charged atmosphere about the role of religion in the public sphere.

O autorze

Nina J. Crimm is Visiting Professor of Law and Visiting Scholar in Residence at the Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law and Professor of Law at St. John's University School of Law in New York. She is the author of numerous articles and books involving taxation and First Amendment issues relevant to non-profit organizations and philanthropy and writes a quarterly column, The Quarterly Commentator, for The Exempt Organization Tax Review. Laurence H. Winer is Professor of Law and Faculty Fellow, Center for Law, Science, & Innovation at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. Professor Winer is the Faculty Editor of Jurimetrics: The Journal of Law, Science, and Technology, and is a member of the First Amendment Advisory Council of the Media Institute in Washington, D.C., an independent, non-profit research foundation specializing in issues of media and communications policy.