{"id":822,"date":"2011-05-16T09:50:21","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T13:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=822"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:57:06","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:57:06","slug":"minister-cannot-intervene-to-defend-parsonage-tax-exemption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/05\/16\/minister-cannot-intervene-to-defend-parsonage-tax-exemption\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister Cannot Intervene to Defend Parsonage Tax Exemption"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Stephan<\/em><\/p>\n

The Ninth Circuit answered an important tax law question involving the Establishment Clause and civil procedure this week in\u00a0Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Rodgers<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 In short, the appellate court considered whether an individual who claims federal tax exemptions may intervene as of right in an action challenging the constitutionality of those exemptions.\u00a0 Besides raising a pressing constitutional question about tax exceptions for ministers,\u00a0Rodgers<\/em>\u00a0shows prospective litigants what it takes to intervene as of right on the side of the government.<\/p>\n

The Freedom from Religion Foundation sued the IRS and the Secretary of the Treasury, alleging that the \u201cparsonage exemption\u201d violates the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution.\u00a0 This exemption allows \u201cminister[s] of the gospel\u201d to exclude and deduct various home-rental values and property payments from their gross incomes.\u00a0 The Foundation sought a declaration deeming the exemption unconstitutional, as well as an injunction barring the government from allowing the exemption.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Michael Rodgers, a minister who regularly claims federal and state parsonage exemptions, moved to intervene as a defendant so that he could defend the constitutionality of the exemption himself.\u00a0 Rodgers argued that the federal defendants didn\u2019t share his ultimate objective of upholding the constitutionality of the exemption, and thus that he should be allowed to intervene as of right.\u00a0 He argued that the federal defendants were actually interested in having the exemption struck down because of their interest in maximizing federal tax revenues.\u00a0 Such an interest, alleged Rodgers, would lead the defendants to abandon key arguments in defense of the exemption and to decline to appeal an adverse ruling.<\/p>\n

The district court disagreed, and it denied Rodgers\u2019s petition.\u00a0 On Monday, the Ninth Circuit affirmed.\u00a0 The unanimous Ninth Circuit panel held that Rodgers \u201cpresented no evidence that would lead [it] to doubt that the federal defendants\u2019 ultimate objective is to uphold the challenged statutes.\u201d\u00a0 Rodgers also presented no evidence that the federal defendants intended to botch their defense of the exemption or were unwilling to appeal an adverse ruling.\u00a0 In sum, Rodgers\u2019s conjectures as to the defendants\u2019 interests and intentions were too speculative to warrant intervention as of right.<\/p>\n

Despite this holding, however, Rodgers might still be allowed to join the suit as a defendant if the district court grants his motion for permissive intervention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Stephan The Ninth Circuit answered an important tax law question involving the Establishment Clause and civil procedure this week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-dg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}