Is It Right That Organized Religions Are Allowed To Own Assets?

Our society does not base an individual or group’s property rights upon tax payment. You must be thinking of Communist China.

You are looking at the wrong end of the issue.
Church groups started out as small village based faith centers where the locals built a building to meet in publicly. They made private contributions to put up the bricks and mortar so they could meet in a central place that could fit them all.
Because the world has surged forward and made property ownership and investment their god, the inflationary pressures have dragged the value of church property with it. Nobody can stop that.
The contributors are wage earners who pay tax anyway so a non-profit center for worship is a community asset that should not be taxed.
When churches start working to grow profits by property speculation and development then taxes should apply. Just to build a building means taxes are paid to the suppliers of materials so even a nonprofit building pays tax.

All members of churches pay taxes.
Your idea would bankrupt most places anyway, as study after study shows.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260067214828295.html
“Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.
Did the greater prosperity in low-tax states happen by chance? Is it coincidence that the two highest tax-rate states in the nation, California and New York, have the biggest fiscal holes to repair? No. Dozens of academic studies — old and new — have found clear and irrefutable statistical evidence that high state and local taxes repel jobs and businesses.

Not unless the government is going to take up the slack. Look at the charity and amount of people that churches feed every year? Who will feed the homeless and give shelter to those who have none? The government has done a miserable job in these areas in the past. If not for churches showing the love and mercy of God to a hurting world, where would we be? In my area alone, churches run 4 soup kitchens, 3 homeless shelters, utility relief for the poor, clothing shops where those in need can go to get coats and clothes, food banks, a halfway home for recovering drug addicts, a domestic violence shelter, meals on wheels for the elderly. I live in a fairly small town. If these resources were taken, who would provide what these churches provide? No, churches are entitled to their tax exempt status.

Once upon the time they were the primary purveyor of social services. They ran orphanages and soup kitchens as well as parish schools. Some of them still provide a lot of valuable services, others don’t.
I think they should have to pay taxes on their properties. These local taxes pay for the local services that the churches no longer provide.

The same is true with all so-called non-profit organizations. That’s the ways the laws of man are written. God’s laws are much more strict. If churches followed God’s Laws, there would be no tax exemptions. In fact, the governments of man would have no say in what churches do. These tax exemptions exist solely to allow man’s government to exercise control over churches. And the greedy (or foolish) pastors fell for it by volunteering for the exemption.

“it’s obvious that many organized religions have a surplus of money”
Which shoulda gone to the charity they profess to support…
Yeah; nice *catch*.
“Do you think this practice should be outlawed?”
Definitely; they could ‘save’ the economy overnight.
~

Snake oil in the form of God is the most precious business product available. It’s worth fudging the law to keep it in existance

Yes..and it will…are YOU or i exempt from paying taxes?….i thought so

Churches are non-profit organizations. To become one you must prove that you qualify under the 501 C3 statues in the tax code. It takes months and sometimes a few years to get all your paperwork correctly filled out, reviewed and approved by the IRS. Churches must do this just as other public service non-profit organizations must. There is no law denying non-profits the right to own land and buildings in which to conduct their programs. If you deny this right to religious non-profits you would have to do so for secular non-profits as well.
The reason that non-profits are tax-exempt is because they serve the public good and are donation based in their funding. They cannot sell their services or any goods to make money (except in some very limited fund-raising style events such as an auction or bake sale, etc.). They also cannot invest their “surplus money” as you refer to it in the stock market or other business oriented investments. They can only use their money to expand their services. The government has determined that it is appropriate for both secular and religious non-profit organizations to keep their money so that they can serve their members and the community better without the additional burden of taxes.
As far as “surplus money” is concerned, most local non-profits (including the local church on the corner in your town or mine) are barely making ends meet in providing services, keeping their buildings up, buying teaching materials, paying staff (usually far less than those in the private sector), etc. In the case of many churches in America they are also . . running soup kitchens and providing free meals to the homeless, conducting free marriage counseling for the community, providing hospital and prison chaplaincy services, conducting canned food drives, serving free holiday meals to the homeless, etc, etc, etc, etc. Try calling a cross section of local churches and ask them for a detailed list of all the community services that they conduct on a monthly basis. . . at no charge to anyone who asks for those services. For example. . . a church near my home provides free lunches one day a week to any low-income families with children in our community who wish to take advantage of them. They do this in the local park in the summer and at a community center in the winter months. The lunches are extremely nutritious, all locally grown produce and whole-grain breads, etc. They have volunteers who prepare the meals, serve the tables and even put on plays and fun family activities as well. I happen to know for a fact that it costs them somewhere to the tune of $5,000. per month to continue this service. In our area most of those who take advantage are very much in need and often it is the only meal they get that day. That’s just one church’s story of how they choose to use their “surplus money”. Every church I know of has their own story.
I can’t agree with you that churches should be denied the right to own assets or be tax-exempt. In America anyway, churches take a huge burden off of the Federal government through the ministries they conduct free of charge. Why should they somehow be taxed or denied the right to own land and buildings in which to conduct those services and businesses? Religious groups have the right. . . and yes even under the separation of church and state clause, to use their resources to better their communities through volunteerism and philanthropic activities. . . just as secular groups do. If you take that right away then you would truly be in violation of the church and state clause since it states that the government cannot make any law which restricts the right of it’s citizens to practice their religion.
Personally there are a lot of non-profits out there that I don’t particularly like or approve of, but I’ll stand for their right to exist and serve their communities as they see fit. It seems you do not approve of organized religion. That is certainly your right. . . but you don’t have the authority to deny them the right to serve their communities and practice their religion as they see fit.