Reply #15: "Poor" isn't the reason for tax-exempt status.

[Igel]

Public service and being not-for-profit is. They can be religious, educational, or even advocacy (since, in some sense, that's also educational). One could argue quite independently of the tax code that citizen groups, where the citizens already pay taxes and where the groups aren't trying to make a profit for their "owners" should be tax exempt, whether it's the local PTA or the Mormons.

The Nature Conservancy isn't poor, nor are GreenPeace and the ACLU--the all take in a fair amount of money per year, and neither have helping the poor as their primary motivation. Yet they're also non-profit and tax-exempt.