Follett v. Town of McCormick (1944)
Religious Tax Exemptions: Licensing & Taxing Religion
Should people who earn their living by selling or distributing religious materials be required to pay the same licensing fees and taxes as are expected of those who sell or distribute non-religious materials? Does "freedom of religion" also mean "freedom from having to pay government fees" like everyone else?
Background Information
The town of McCormick, South Carolina had an ordinance which stated:
the following license on business, occupation and professions to be paid by the person or persons carrying on or engaged in such business, occupation or professions within the corporate limits of the Town of McCormick, South Carolina: Agents selling books, per day $1.00, per year $15.00.'
Follett, a Jehovah's Witness, was employed as an "ordained minister" who made his actual living by distributing religious materials door-to-door - he had no other income. He stated that he did not technically "sell" the books; rather, he encouraged that people donate money to his efforts and he then lived off of that. Evidence indicated, however, that he did indeed offer to "sell" the books at the homes he visited. He was charged with violating the McCormick ordinance and subsequently found guilty.
Follett appealed, argued that the ordinance restricted his freedom of religion, but the decision was the Circuit Court of General Sessions for McCormick County and then by the Supreme Court of South Carolina. Follett then took his appeal to the United States Supreme Court.
Court Decision
With Justice Douglas writing the majority decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Follett, finding that the McCormick ordinance was indeed unconstitutional because it improperly restricted his freedom of religion when it came to distributing religious material.
The Court held that in all significant respects, this case was much the same as Jones v. Opelika and Murdock v. Pennsylvania where similar ordinances were struck down. The town of McCormick tried to argue that because Follett was a local resident rather than an itinerant preacher, this was a difference which mattered - but the Court rejected that.
Preachers of the more orthodox faiths are not engaged in commercial undertakings because they are dependent on their calling for a living. Whether needy or affluent, they avail themselves of the constitutional privilege of a 'free exercise' of their religion when they enter the pulpit to proclaim their faith. The priest or preacher is as fully protected in his function as the parishioners are in their worship. A flat license tax on that constitutional privilege would be as odious as the early 'taxes on knowledge' which the framers of the First Amendment sought to outlaw.
Justices Reed and Murphy wrote concurring opinions, with Murphy writing that:
It is wise to remember that the taxing and licensing power is a dangerous and potent weapon which, in the hands of unscrupulous or bigoted men, could be used to suppress freedoms and destroy religion unless it is kept within appropriate bounds.
Murphy also emphasized that there is an important difference between commercial activity which occurs for the purpose of profit and an exchange of products and money which is done for the purpose of promoting religious ideas and/or for other religious purposes:
There is an obvious difference between taxing commercial property and investments undertaken for profit, whatever use is made of the income, and laying a tax directly on an activity that is essentially religious in purpose and character or on an exercise of the privilege of free speech and free publication.
Justices Roberts, Frankfurter, and Jackson signed a separate opinion in which they dissented from the holdings of the majority, arguing that a broad exemption from taxation for religious activities is itself dangerous because the fact that an activity is religious does not mean that those who pursue it should not be expected to help support the local community upon which they depend:
Unless the phrase 'free exercise', embodied in the First Amendment, means that government must render service free to those who earn their living in a religious calling, no reason is apparent why the appellant, like every other earner in the community, should not contribute his share of the community's common burden of expense. In effect the decision grants not free exercise of religion, in the sense that such exercise shall not be hindered or limited, but, on the other hand, requires that the exercise of religion be subsidized.
These three justices also pointed out just how difficult it would be to limit such exemptions to religion - after all, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech as well:
We cannot ignore what this decision involves. If the First Amendment grants immunity from taxation to the exercise of religion it must equally grant a similar exemption to those who speak and to the press. ...If exactions on the business or occupation of selling cannot be enforced against Jehovah's Witnesses they can no more be enforced against publishers or vendors of books, whether dealing with religion or other matters of information.
Furthermore, the three dissenting justices argued that it would be very difficult for judges to determine what does and does not qualify as a "religious activity" which should be exempt from the same licensing and taxation that is required of every other activity:
Multiple activities by which citizens earn their bread may, with equal propriety, be denominated an exercise of religion as may preaching or selling religious tracts. Certainly this court cannot say that one activity is the exercise of religion and the other is not. ...It would be difficult to deny the claims of those who devote their lives to the healing of the sick, to the nursing of the disabled, to the betterment of social and economic conditions, and to a myriad other worthy objects, that their respective callings, albeit they earn their living by pursuing them, are, for them, the exercise of religion. Such a belief, however earnestly and honestly held, does not entitle the believers to be free of contribution to the cost of government, which itself guarantees them the privilege of pursuing their callings without governmental prohibition or interference.
Significance
This decision followed closely those in Jones v. Opelika and Murdock v. Pennsylvania, firmly establishing the precedent that taxes or licenses for what amounts to the dissemination of religious beliefs is unconstitutional. What was left unclear, however, was whether religious activities generally required broad tax exemptions in order for the government to avoid violating the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution.
