Last November, the Freedom From Religion Foundation won a stunning court victory.
The Madison organization had taken aim at a longstanding Internal Revenue Service rule that allows a house of worship to designate part of a clergy member’s cash compensation as a tax-free housing allowance. This federal tax break grants ministers special treatment and causes the rest of us to pay higher taxes, the foundation argued.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in the foundation’s favor, finding the tax break unconstitutional because it “provides a benefit to religious persons and no one else.” The federal government has appealed.
If the ruling were to stand, clergy members would lose hundreds of millions of dollars in income to taxes. At the time of Crabb’s ruling, no churches had weighed in on the matter, perhaps thinking the lawsuit wasn’t going to go anywhere. That has now changed.