My opinion is that it would have been better to have created a Constitution which specified that all property be taxed. However that is not what we have. The SCOTUS has settled this issue. Church property is not taxable. It is the flip side of the wall of separation. The power to tax a church is the power to destroy a church.
Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Things get tricky when the church owns a hospital or a store. It gets tricky when I claim my house is a church for my religion of one person. It gets tricky when what some don't think is a church buys a big piece of their city.
Could an argument be made that the church gets fire protection, gets it's streets plowed and resurfaced, gets government subsidized electricity and gas. And that the cost of those and all the other government services is having to be picked up by taxpayers who may have far less (or more) ability to pay. Why should I be paying to supply fire protection to a church?
That is the argument rejected by the Court in Walz as the justices felt the entanglement of forcing citizens to support a church via their taxes was less problematic than allowing direct taxation of the churches. Justice Douglas dissented arguing the opposite.
Maybe we just should have an amenity fee and a bond applied to every structure built. Hmm