Remove the tax exempt status for churches & religious groups, placing them on equal status as other social organizations

Churches are social organizations and as such should not be afforded tax exempt status. The original intent of allowing churches this special status was to support their charitable acts and social support for their local communities. However this policy is now outdated. Today the government is the provider of last resort for social services and churches are primarily social organizations who do some charitable work on a limited basis for their members, not for the community at large. The churches may still apply for and be granted tax protection for the revenue that they spend on direct community charity but the blanket protection they now enjoy should be removed. The removal of this unnecessary exempt status would add close to 100 billion to the tax revenue collected each year.