Plan Takes Aim at Church Tax Breaks

Churches and other nonprofit organizations have long enjoyed exemption from property taxes, but this fall Colorado voters could make their state the first in the nation to end that tradition.

John Patrick Michael Murphy, a Colorado Springs personal injury attorney, has collected nearly 90,000 signatures in support of a constitutional amendment that would force thousands of religious, philanthropic and community organizations to pay taxes on their land, buildings and personal property.

Colorado officials have until next. Saturday to decide if enough signatures are valid to place the measure on the Nov. 5 state ballot. They estimate that the amendment would return nearly $3 billion worth of property to tax rolls, generating $70 million in property taxes annually.

Not all nonprofit and religious organizations would lose their tax-exempt status. Murphy said groups that meet a public “duty” test, such as those that provide housing for orphans, the elderly, disabled and homeless, would not have to pay property taxes. But most nonprofit organizations would.

“We simply want churches and charities to pay their fair share,” Murphy said. “The motive is tax fairness. One person shouldn’t have to shoulder the burden of another.”

Murphy maintains that in the long run, churches and charities would see a rise in income if the measure passes because Coloradans would have more disposable income to donate.

“We’re going to return more money to the pews than we’re going to extract from the pulpits,” he said. “These preachers ought to trust their parishioners.”

But opponents describe the initiative as the most draconian assault on the state’s religious and charitable organizations in Colorado history.

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The initiative would end property tax exemptions for about 5,000 churches, synagogues and mosques; more than 1,500 nonprofit organizations involved in everything from arts and athletics to zoos; thousands of acres of Christian and New Age camp and retreat properties; more than 500 hospitals and health clinics; hundreds of Moose lodges and other fraternal organization properties; and most of the state’s cemeteries and soup kitchens.

“What this comes down to is people taking a rather short-sighted look toward what’s going to stay in my pocketbook as opposed to what kind of community do I want to live in and do I want my children to live in,” said Pat Read, executive director of the Colorado Assn. of Nonprofit Organizations.

The son and grandson of Irish Catholics, Murphy, 50, describes himself as an agnostic and freethinker who believes religion and government should be strictly separate. He is a supporter of the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, a church-state separation group that wants to stop all government support of religious organizations.

Well-known in Colorado Springs as a radio talk show host, he has spent $60,000 of his own money on the amendment initiative. He works from an office decorated with Western paintings, century-old rifles and a menagerie of stuffed mountain lions, armadillos and rattlesnakes.

Just before Pope John Paul II visited Colorado in 1993, Murphy released a letter he sent the pope, requesting an apology to Catholics who as children had been sexually abused by priests. Murphy said he was repeatedly molested by a Colorado priest from age 7 or 8 until his teens.

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Murphy’s initiative is the first statewide effort to cut nonprofit organizations’ tax exemptions. Similar efforts have been attempted--without success--in Berkeley and several other places.

“We’re taking this pretty seriously, unfortunately,” said Read, who believes that the amendment would cause many large nonprofit groups to fire workers and slash services. As for smaller, cash-strapped organizations, she said, “the results would be disastrous.”

The Rev. Lucia Guzman, executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches, said the amendment would force hundreds of small and inner-city churches to close. “This will be like killing the soul of our communities,” Guzman said.

In Colorado Springs, a city of 280,000 nestled at the foot of Pikes Peak, some amendment foes said the measure marks an effort to halt the influx and growth of evangelical Christian organizations, which have earned the city the moniker “the Vatican of American evangelicalism.”

The city is home to more than 70 Christian ministries and businesses, including the Navigators, Young Life and the International Bible Society, which have a combined annual income of more than $600 million.

The largest and most controversial of the city’s nonprofit evangelical groups is Focus on the Family, a media ministry with annual income of $101 million.

Focus on the Family has been active in a number of controversial policy issues on the state and federal levels. It supported a state constitutional amendment limiting homosexual rights, and ministry founder James Dobson has vociferously urged an outright ban on abortion.

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Some backers of the property tax amendment point to Dobson’s views on abortion--and his group’s conservative evangelical activism--as an example of why most religious groups should lose their tax-exempt status.

“I’m a pro-choice activist, and Focus on the Family is one of the biggest publishers of anti-choice literature in America,” said Janet Brazill of Colorado Springs, one of about 80 people who volunteered to circulate petitions on the property tax amendment.

“I also support religious liberty,” she said, “but through my taxes I’m forced to support local missionary groups who go to other countries to force their beliefs on people. I would rather put my money toward things I believe in.”

But Paul Hetrick, spokesman for Focus on the Family, said the initiative represents a form of “economic hostility toward churches and nonprofits.”

He also charges that petition circulators have acted dishonestly by not telling voters about the economic impact ministries such as Focus on the Family have in the state.

Guzman and Read have discussed ways Colorado’s nonprofit organizations can fight the proposed amendment, but the Internal Revenue Service restricts the amount of lobbying and campaigning they can do.