he Federal Inland
Revenue and some state governments are said to be mulling over the prospect of
churches paying taxes. It will not be the first time such ideas have come up in
government and revenue collecting quarters. The logic behind the consideration
is that churches are now prosperous by all visible measures and have become
viable institutions economically, so why not get them to pay taxes from part of
their wealth. The basis of this reasoning is most simplistic. It also misses the
fundamental essence and place of churches and other faith groupings, which in
the first place informed their exemption from taxation and some other secular
undertakings.
It is true that by their primary concern with matters of
spiritual existence and development, churches and clergy men especially in the
orthodox realm, are known to lay little, if any emphasis at all, on material
wealth. By their disposition and focus, these hardly promote or dwell on
economic and mundane acquisitions. This was the background of most of the
orthodox churches and their clergy professing poverty and working assiduously
for the greater wealth of the eternal life, as their belief firmly holds.
The distinction of role in the society between the church and
the state is deeply anchored in history. The respect by the state over the
centuries of the line demarcating its influence over the church has not been due
to lack of creativity on the part of those who run states. As it concerns
taxation, it is not exactly because the church is very poor that the modern
state left it out of paying taxes when it took over secular authority from the
church.
Till date, the churches and all other faith bodies owe the
society a higher responsibility that is both unquantifiable and at the very root
of the survival of the society.
In the right sense of their essence and character, churches
are not profit making institutions. They are institutions which go beyond the
mundane and the selfish to promote and sustain those fabrics of sanity,
conscience, justice and restraint which help to keep the human society in
balance. Remove the churches and other faith institutions and even the law
cannot promise to keep man in check. The modern state recognized this at its
inception.
Are there churches and religious bodies which now hug mundane
tendencies and create the impression that they are essentially concerned with
material things? Of course, there are. The craving for material things, the
preoccupation in sermons and activities with earthly prosperity and the life
style of a superstar which characterise quite a number of new generation
churches and their promoters surely raise questions about their essence.
But these present day aberrations do not in any way diminish
the actual essence of the church or the primacy of the responsibility of guiding
man’s moral bearing which the state recognizes that only the church and the
religions can handle. The question of how to rein in any perceived or obvious
waywardness in the comportment of any religious group or church leadership
cannot be addressed by taking steps wittingly or unwittingly, to turn churches
into the opposite of what they truly are.
There are too many questions and problems that will arise in
any serious attempt to tax churches. By churches, we assume that the reference
is to all faiths and denominations. Now, if some churches or denominational
categories are taxed because they appear economically buoyant, what will be done
to those that are very modest or those that profess poverty? In other words, any
taxation initiative will ab initio be discriminatory.
Then there is the issue of the sources of income for
churches. These have always been voluntary donations from the believers of each
faith. Church incomes are therefore very unpredictable. They depend
substantially on how the spirit moves each person to give. If therefore,
churches are taxed today because some of them and their leaders appear buoyant,
what happens if tomorrow their fortune changes for the worse, since it all
depend on the ability of individual members of the congregation?
However, where churches and religious groups or their leaders
engage in or invest in economic ventures that generate income, they should of
course, be subject to taxation as applies to every such activity in the state.
Where also churches and any other denominational group acquire property or
facilities which are taxable, the items should equally be taxed appropriately.
If there are rich churches and wealthy clergy men and women, the internal
revenue agencies should wait for them to deploy their money in taxable ventures
and expenses. In the plain of secular and economic activities, there can be no
exemption to the rule. But we say no to taxing churches as institutions.
The state governments or revenue agencies that are toying
with the idea of taxing churches should drop any such fancy where ever it is
coming from.
We understand their desire to enhance their internal revenue
generation capacity. Such a desire should have limits and not be allowed to go
haywire. There is still a wide room for creativity in expanding the base for
revenue generation within states. This does not even have to entail stretching
the already stretched ordinary Nigerians who are now at the mercy of governments
and their deluge of taxes and regime of frequent increase in prices of essential
commodities.
