This system was not the Church's idea - the system was different before the Wars of Religion.
The Church is not the villain here and the state is not the hero.
“The Church tax began life as restitution for the vast amounts of Church land, buildings and possessions stolen and destroyed by various governments over the years.”
and such “restitution” is still being paid
1. if so, it should be based on “church statistics of number of members” when the program began, or when the church proeprty was destroyed or stolen, not on todays membership, not on people checking of anything on their tax forms; and the moneys allocated should have have a sunset date when the “restitution” has been paid;
2. but instead, the churches agreed to a permanent church-state government subsidy;
but, in my saying that the churches should not have agreed to this permanent church-state financial tie, I am not looking at the state as “the hero”.
so, I am not blessing the state when I fault the churches for agreeing to the permanence of this “restitution” tax-subsidy;
I imagine the monies already allocated have served the orginal purpose, and taxes could be reduced all around by the amount equal to the churches share of the “9%”, and the churches could learn to survive on what their own members put in the till on Sunday morning, or tithe regularly to them.
the chickens always eventually come home to roost when the church gets in bed with the state