1. United States
2. N.Y.
3. Letter

If organizations are eligible to receive taxpayer funding, they should be eligible to pay taxes. For many, many years it has been integral to the fabric of American society that non-profit and religious organizations have paid no taxes on incomes and properties. This in itself has been a tax burden shift to the taxpayers. Now the Supreme Court will rule that such organizations can apply for and receive even more taxpayer funding. This occurs at the same time that major religious organizations amass great tax-free wealth and large tax-free tracts of property. This flies in the face of taxpayer expectations of how "non-profit" organizations should operate. If a non-profit can amass luxury items, like expensive cars, or in some cases jet planes, or have enough money to buy extra property not directly used for the tax-free purpose, they have enough money to fund themselves without sucking the the blood out of the tax payers.