Fact Check: Do only Hindu temple pay taxes in India

News Claim: A message going viral on social media claims that In a country where everyone enjoys religious freedom, why do only Hindu temples have to pay taxes?.

Viral message on WhatsApp today, Social Media claims:

In a country where everyone enjoys religious freedom, why do only Hindu temples have to pay taxes?

In a country where everyone enjoys religious freedom, why only Hindu temples have to pay taxes? #FreeTemples

— Elvish Yadav (@ElvishYadav) September 26, 2021

There are some messages going around in social media stating that temple trusts have to pay the GST while the churches & mosques are exempt.

News Verification: A message viral on social media claims that Hindu temples pay taxes in India while other religions like Muslims, Christians do not pay taxes. The tweet has gained a huge share on social media, at the time of writing this news it has over 24k likes.

This is an old message viral since 2017. As per the Ministry of Finance news published in July 2017. The Ministry appealed that, “Appeal to people not to start circulating wrong messages on social media as no distinction is made in the GST Law on any provision based on religion.”. It further wrote,

In 2017, the Ministry of Finance also issued a clarification on Twitter debunking the viral message

.

There are some messages going around in social media stating that temple trusts have to pay the GST while the churches & mosques are exempt.

— Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) July 3, 2017

News Verdict: False