397 U.S. 664, 668-669 (1970)
Frederick Walz, owner of real estate in Richmond County, New York, filed suit in New York state courts seeking an injunction to prevent the New York City Tax Commission from granting property tax exemptions to religious organizations for properties used solely for religious worship.1 The exemptions were authorized by Article 16, Section 1 of the New York Constitution, which permits exemptions for real or personal property used exclusively for religious, educational, or charitable purposes and owned by nonprofit corporations or associations organized exclusively for such purposes.2 Walz contended that the exemptions indirectly required him to contribute to religious bodies by increasing the tax burden on non-exempt property.3
The New York City Tax Commission moved for summary judgment. The trial court granted the motion. The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court affirmed, and the New York Court of Appeals also affirmed.4 The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction and heard oral argument on November 19, 1969.5
All fifty states provide tax exemptions for places of worship, most through constitutional provisions.6 New York has granted such exemptions since before the adoption of the First Amendment, and Congress has provided similar exemptions for church property in the District of Columbia since the early nineteenth century.7 The exemptions apply to a broad class of nonprofit organizations, including hospitals, libraries, scientific groups, and patriotic societies, not solely to religious organizations.8
Whether New York City's grant of property tax exemptions to religious organizations for real property used exclusively for religious worship violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment?9
The Establishment Clause prohibits government sponsorship, financial support, or active involvement in religious activity, while the Free Exercise Clause guards against governmental interference with religion; together they require a course of benevolent neutrality that permits religious exercise to exist without sponsorship or interference, turning on whether particular acts are intended to establish or interfere with religious beliefs and practices or have that effect and whether they create excessive entanglement.10
No. Frederick Walz, owner of real estate in Richmond County, New York, filed suit in New York state courts seeking an injunction to prevent the New York City Tax Commission from granting property tax exemptions to religious organizations for properties used solely for religious worship.11 The exemptions were authorized by Article 16, Section 1 of the New York Constitution, which permits exemptions for real or personal property used exclusively for religious, educational, or charitable purposes and owned by nonprofit corporations or associations organized exclusively for such purposes. Walz contended that the exemptions indirectly required him to contribute to religious bodies by increasing the tax burden on non-exempt property. The New York City Tax Commission moved for summary judgment.
The trial court granted the motion. The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court affirmed, and the New York Court of Appeals also affirmed. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction and heard oral argument on November 19, 1969. All fifty states provide tax exemptions for places of worship, most through constitutional provisions.
New York has granted such exemptions since before the adoption of the First Amendment, and Congress has provided similar exemptions for church property in the District of Columbia since the early nineteenth century. The exemptions apply to a broad class of nonprofit organizations, including hospitals, libraries, scientific groups, and patriotic societies, not solely to religious organizations. The legislative purpose of the property tax exemption is neither the advancement nor the inhibition of religion.12 New York has determined that entities that exist in a harmonious relationship to the community at large and foster its moral or mental improvement should not be inhibited by property taxation.13
It has granted exemption to all houses of religious worship within a broad class of property owned by nonprofit quasi-public corporations.14 Granting tax exemptions to churches necessarily operates to afford an indirect economic benefit and also gives rise to some but yet a lesser involvement than taxing them.15 The exemption creates only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state and far less than taxation of churches.16 It restricts the fiscal relationship between church and state and tends to complement and reinforce the desired separation insulating each from the other.17
The property tax exemptions do not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.18
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Brennan concurred on the ground that the history, purpose, and operation of real property tax exemptions for religious organizations must be examined to determine whether the Establishment Clause is breached.19 He noted that the existence from the beginning of the Nation's life of a practice such as tax exemptions for religious organizations is a fact of considerable import in the interpretation of abstract constitutional language.20 Government has two basic secular purposes for granting real property tax exemptions to religious organizations. These organizations contribute to the well-being of the community in a variety of nonreligious ways and thereby bear burdens that would otherwise have to be met by general taxation. They uniquely contribute to the pluralism of American society by their religious activities.21
Tax exemptions and general subsidies are qualitatively different because an exemption involves no direct transfer of public monies and constitutes mere passive state involvement with religion.22 Whether Government grants or withholds the exemptions, it is going to be involved with religion. The exemptions do not serve the essentially religious activities of religious institutions and their principal effect is to carry out secular purposes.23
Justice Harlan concurred on the ground that the legislation neither encourages nor discourages participation in religious life and thus satisfies the voluntarism requirement of the First Amendment.24 The statute also satisfies the requirement of neutrality. Neutrality in its application requires an equal protection mode of analysis. The critical question is whether the circumference of legislation encircles a class so broad that it can be fairly concluded that religious institutions could be thought to fall within the natural perimeter.25 The statute that implements New York's constitutional provision for tax exemptions to religious organizations has defined a class of nontaxable entities whose common denominator is their nonprofit pursuit of activities devoted to cultural and moral improvement.26
In the context of a statute so broad as the one before the Court, churches may properly receive an exemption. This holds even though they do not themselves sponsor the secular-type activities mentioned in the statute but exist merely for the convenience of their interested members.27 Noninvolvement is further assured by the neutrality and breadth of the exemption.28
Justice Douglas dissented on the ground that the question is whether believers organized in church groups can be made exempt from real estate taxes merely because they are believers while nonbelievers must pay the real estate taxes.29 That principle from Torcaso v. Watkins should govern this case because neither the State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers.30 A tax exemption is a subsidy and the State may not subsidize churches any more than it may prefer those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.31
The financial support rendered here is to the church, the place of worship, and on the record of this case the church qua nonprofit charitable organization is intertwined with the church qua church.32 Direct financial aid to churches or tax exemptions to the church qua church is not even arguably permitted because sectarian causes must remain in the private domain not subject to public control or subsidy.33