Amendment No. 2 Threatens Churches, Non-Profits with Massive Property Taxes

By William Most, Attorney at Law

Louisiana voters should beware: On March 29, 2025, they will be asked whether to approve changes to the Louisiana Constitution. But what they won’t be told is that some of those changes would seriously narrow constitutional protections for church and religious organizations’ property.  

During a two-week special session last fall, the state legislature passed a bill which proposed wide-ranging revision of the Louisiana Constitution. The proposed changes span more than 100 pages. They address a variety of unrelated issues including narrowing local control over sales taxes, lowering some tax rates, liquidating education and health trust funds, allowing for taxation of take-out food, and deleting constitutional authorization for farmers’ and fishermen’s programs, and much, much more.

Those 100 plus pages of changes were condensed into a one-sentence ballot question supposedly describing Amendment No. 2 scheduled for the March 29 ballot, for voters to vote up or down. 

However, in recent weeks, faith leaders across Louisiana have begun to raise the alarm about something disturbing: The ballot language is not truthful about the changes it would make to constitutional protections for religious property. 

Specifically, the ballot language says Amendment No. 2 is “retaining the . . .  exemption [from property taxes] for religious organizations.” But it is not! Instead, it would drastically narrow the religious exemption. To see that, we have to compare the current constitution’s language to the changes that Amendment No. 2 proposes. 

The current Louisiana Constitution protects from property taxes any land or buildings owned by an association organized for religious or charitable purposes. That is to say, the protection is focused on the nature of the organization, not the use of each parcel of land.

Amendment No. 2 would entirely delete that language, and replace it with a more constricted exemption that applies only to“property owned by a nonprofit operated exclusively for religious purposes as a house of worship, residential housing for clergy, priests, or nuns, or a seminary or other educational institution training individuals for religious ministry.”

This shifts the protection away from the organization and would require tax assessors to look at the specific uses of each piece of property by a church or other religious organization or charity. Thus, any mixed-use properties like fellowship halls, cemeteries, church gardens, family centers, gyms, baseball fields or countless other uses would lose the constitutional protection – even if they are owned by a bona fide church. 

Next comes the question of what would happen to the property of any church-related non-profit ministries, like the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, Habitat for Humanity, and Bread for the World. According to one estimate, there are more than 30,000 evangelical Christian ministries of that nature.  

If Amendment No. 2 is passed and takes effect, all of those organizations in Louisiana would lose their constitutional protection from property taxation – which would be directly contrary to the ballot language’s claim that it is “retaining” the “exemption for religious organizations.”

That property could then be seized for non-payment  of taxes.

Some people may think it is good policy to narrow the constitutional protections against property taxation of churches and eliminate it for all church non-profit ministries. Others may think that is bad policy and should be stopped. But what I think we can all agree on is that voters should be told the truth about the changes Amendment No. 2 would make to the state constitution – before voters are asked to vote on it. 

William Most is a constitutional rights attorney. His firm, Most & Associates, has filed a lawsuit challenging Amendment No. 2.