Brunson: Between The Temple And The Tax Collector — The Intersection Of Mormonism And The State

Sam Brunson (Loyola-Chicago; Google Scholar), Between the Temple and the Tax Collector: The Intersection of Mormonism and the State (University of Illinois Press 2025):

The founding and development of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints run parallel to the rise of the modern tax system and administrative state. Samuel D. Brunson looks at the relationships between the Church and various federal, state, local, and international tax regimes.

The church and its members engage with the state as taxpayers and as members of a faith exempt from taxes. As Brunson shows, LDS members and the Church have at various times enacted, enforced, and collected taxes while also challenging taxes in the courts and politics. Brunson delves into the ways LDS members used their status as taxpayers to affirm themselves as citizens and how outsiders have attacked the Church’s tax-exempt status to delegitimize it. Throughout, Brunson uses the daily interactions between the Latter-day Saints and taxation to explain important and inevitable holes in the wall between church and state.

Enlightening and informed, Between the Temple and the Tax Collector provides general readers and experts alike with a new perspective on a fundamental issue.

Review
“An important contribution that discusses unexplored aspects of the Mormon past, while the focus on tax law helps with the effort to move accounts of the LDS legal experience beyond matters of religious freedom. Written clearly and without legal jargon, Brunson’s book offers readers a rare systematic study of the relationship between Mormonism and taxation.”—-Nathan B. Oman, coeditor of Democracy, Religion, and the Market: Private Markets and the Public Regulation of Religion

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