Supreme Court says it will review if Catholic Charities is exempt from labor taxes in a major church-state case

CNN — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether religious affiliated entities like Catholic Charities should be exempt from state unemployment taxes, taking up its first major religion case in more than a year. The Catholic Charities Bureau in Wisconsin told the high court that the state’s labor department violated the First Amendment when it declined its request for an exemption from the unemployment taxes. Wisconsin’s highest court sided with the state in March, ruling that because Catholic Charities didn’t proselytize or participate in traditional religious activities, it didn’t qualify for the religious exemption from the taxes. “In one sense, the question presented in the Wisconsin case is a very narrow one – implicating only the relationship between the Constitution and a single state’s statutory exemption for religious organizations from unemployment taxes,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center.