Most of the church's wealth is tied up in real estate: churches and temples (I'm not talking about the church's for profit businesses). These assets belong to the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop, which is wholly owned by the Corporation of the President.

On the profit & loss side, most of the church's money goes toward maintaining its assets. The only beneficiary is the one who owns the assets, the Corporation of the President. Members may use the facilities to worship invisible sky fairies and clean toilets, but these services aren't provided for free: the church's entire operating income consists of member donations.

How is this charity?

I blame the philosophy of Church automatically equals Charity

It's only a matter of time before some large corporation offers some sort of incentive to "convert" to their "religion" so that they can get tax exempt status as well. Why can't they be a church? What's the definition of church? etc... If it gets some employees to "convert," then it is obviously a religion and merits the special laws regarding religions.

It's silly.

We already have an adequate set of laws regarding non-profit organizations. If a church operates within those guidelines, then they do deserve tax privileges. If they don't, then they need to pay taxes.

What *NO* organization deserves is carte blanche to not be allowed to even look at their finances. That's just asking for problems including corruption, money laundering, & extortion.

Agree. Even people who aren't religious themselves seem to subscribe to the notion that religion equals charity.