It is often the case that they do. For example, the church that I attend bought adjacent property to keep as vacant open space.. but since there is no church on the land, the church pays property tax on it just like any other non tax exempt entity would. Kind of ironic since if it were farmland deemed open space it would be a different story in most places. Our tax code is not perfect but the path forward is to look at it in totality... the minute you try to solve one problem here, you’ll create a dozen there. Churches are global organizations... I’m sure it wouldn’t take much thinking, painful as it may be, for the Mormons to decide to hold their wealth outside of the US should our tax policies become unsustainable for them. Just because it’s a large number doesn’t mean it’s wrong.