Query -- Church Commercial Activities

[Harold Hallikainen]

        Though not DIRECTLY responding to your request, there has been
some recent action by the local tax assessor on charging property tax on
church property used for nonreligious purposes.  It has been common
practice here for churches to rent meeting rooms to other groups, often
nonprofit, but not religious (some have not been nonprofit, for example,
use of a church for a music concert, like the one I'm going to tonight).
Further, the CA constitution has an exemption from property taxes for
church property used for religious purposes (and includes an exemption on
the parking lot used to park cars for religious purposes).  However, if
the church rents the room to someone (like Rotary) for their weekly
meetings, the tax assessor now wants taxes on that room.
        Back on the "commercial activities" question, would a church be
treated any differently than any other nonprofit organization with
commercial activities by the IRS?  It would seem that the "soup kitchen"
would not be commercial if they gave the soup away, but commercial if
they sold it.


Harold



Harold Hallikainen
harold at hallikainen.com
Hallikainen & Friends, Inc.
See the FCC Rules at http://hallikainen.com/FccRules and comments filed
in LPFM proceeding at http://hallikainen.com/lpfm