Posted on 02/27/2008 12:15:06 PM PST by girlangler
IRS Investigates Church Group for Obama Speech
The Internal Revenue Service is investigating the United Church of Christ for possibly violating federal restrictions on political activity for tax-exempt groups after the denomination hosted Sen. Barack Obama as a speaker at its national meeting last year, says the Associated Press.
Senator Obama, who gave a speech to the denomination about faith and public life in Hartford, Conn., after he became a candidate for president, belongs to the 1.2 million-member Protestant group through his Chicago congregation.
The IRS cited articles posted on the church’s Web site stating that volunteers for Senator Obama’s campaign gave out information at tables outside the center. Nonprofit groups are prohibited from endorsing candidates or providing support for campaigns, although groups are allowed to invite candidates to address them.
The Rev. J. Bennett Guess, a spokesman for the denomination, said the group had taken careful steps to avoid any wrongdoing. Church leaders consulted with lawyers before the event. He said a church official announced at the event that the senator’s talk was not a campaign-related event, that Senator Obama’s volunteers were told they could not enter the meeting, and that the denomination had invited Senator Obama to speak a year before he announced his candidacy.
Rev. John H. Thomas, president of the denomination, expressed dismay and disappointment over the investigation. “When the invitation to an elected public official to speak to the national meeting of his own church family is called into question, it has a chilling effect on every religious community,” he said in a statement.
Grassley is investigating all the mega churches. IRS is investing this church. First Amendment has been flipped upside down and no one cares.
http://www.star-telegram.com/464/story/497473.html
Snip:
Amy Brundage, an Obama spokeswoman, insisted the speech was not a campaign event. In the address, Obama spoke about his personal spiritual journey and had said that faith had been misused in the past to divide Americans, partly because of the Christian right.
(Um, read that last sentence a few more times)
A lot of anti-American protests are sponsored or facilitaed by your local UU Church.
The original “Winter Soldier” book from the 70’s was made possible by a UU Church.
Oh Oh!.....It will all be whitewashed....no pun intended.
The fact that the IRS has the ability to "prohibit" or "allow" any activity relating to freedom of speech (especially religious or political speech) is proof that we will never be a free country until the IRS is exterminated.
Fox & Friends reported on this story this morning.
I think it’s important to remember that many churches freely choose to attain “501 3 (c)” status, and thus, are subject to the restrictions thereof. Don’t get me wrong I’m no lover of the IRS. It would be best to eliminate (or severely curtail) the IRS and its code, however, under the current situation, “501 3 (c)” makes perfect sense.
Why? Because if all churches everywhere were suddenly allowed to promote and endorse candidates for office, then you would see an explosion of “churches” everywhere, claiming any kind of “religion” as a ruse, a front to hide their true purpose for incorporation, which would really be to simply circumvent any and all campaign contribution limits. Ultimately, this is a question about “campaign contribution limits”, and whether or not it’s a good thing to have them. Until that question is truly resolved (and of course it hasn’t been) then there will always be the IRS and “501 3 (c)”.
If one believes that limits are a good thing, then one cannot complain about 501 3 (c). If one does not, then still, it (contribution limits) is the REAL question here and the one to be fought, not the IRS per-se.
Of course, above and beyond all this is the simple fact that no church is OBLIGATED to become tax exempt (thus, no one’s first amendment right is infringed really). If a church so chooses, they can subject themselves to income tax, and then promote and endorse all the candidates they want.
Those "campaign contribution limits" themselves are another violation of free speech rights. The idea that one tyranny should somehow be imposed to make another tyranny "more fair" is a major contributor to the abominable system we have now.
marked to read later
A little secret. Churches don't even need to be 501(c)3 to be tax-exempt. Most CPA's recommend it because it makes it clear. Churches have always been tax-exempt. This little rule put in by Lyndon Johnson was to try to get under the thumb of the IRS. To pass Constitutional mustard though, they made it 'voluntary' for Churches. Of course today, there are few judges in the land who would consider the tax-exempt status of churches to be a Constitutional Right instead of a statutory privilege, so LBJ's trick worked. In the 1950's it was just presumed that governments had no right to tax churches.
Interesting historical perspective, thank you. Is it true today, if someone forms their own church, it’s automatically considered tax exempt, without having to become 501 (c) 3? If this is true, I wonder why this hasn’t been exploited as a way to circumvent campaign contribution limits?
What a complete crock.
Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, others too numerous to mention have been giving speeches in black churches for decades.
Mayor Tom Bradley literally started the riots where Reginald Denny was beaten when he stood in the church and said : No justice-=-No peace. It was all it took for all he double l to break loose.
It’s not the giving of a speech, it’s the expressed endorsement of a candidate and active campaigning (in this case, handing out campaign literature).
Unitarian Universalist. They believe everything... err, or is that nothing? An extremely liberal “religion”. The only thing you can pin them down on is that they support practically every liberal and immoral cause you can think of.
Interesting and true story: Back in 1984, at the church I grew up in in central PA, my fomer Sunday school teacher was supposed to be doing morning announcements when he launched into a rambling soapbox talk on why, as a Christian, it would be impossible to vote for anyone but Reagan, and urged everyone there to vote for Reagan.
I was 19 at the time and not too aware of much. When he was finished with that, he did announcements, etc. No one said a word about what he had said (pro/con or otherwise, although many/most probably agreed with him). I wonder how much trouble the church would have been in had a (liberal) IRS agent been in the congregation!
Because the court can still rule those are not church activities and declare them taxable. To engage in political activities a Church needs to set up a separate corp and just use those funds for political activities.
I agree with you in principal, but I believe gas taxes do not go to the general fund, they go to fund roads. It seems like a sensible approach. A sort of radical Libertarian’s argument (even more radical than me) might prefer all roads be toll roads, or that I am responsbile to join work brigades to fix public highways (Interstates). I fear that the latter would lead to a classic underprovision of public goods problem. As badly maintained as Interstates can be (and a smuch as I complain wwhen I get stuck in construction) I value the ability to get around so quickly
OTOH, maybe toll roads are better...
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