Posted on 03/22/2005 8:23:42 AM PST by Brian Mosely
The IRS has notified a Liberty City church that it is under investigation for possibly engaging in political activity -- putting its tax-exempt status into question.
The probe is related to an appearance last October by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and several black leaders, including U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The reason for the investigation, an IRS official wrote in a 10-page letter obtained by The Herald, is that ``a reasonable belief exists that Friendship Missionary Baptist Church has engaged in political activities that could jeopardize its tax-exempt status as a church.''
(Excerpt) Read more at miami.com ...
Free speech is not the question here - tax exempt status is. Churches are as free to engage in politics as they want to be - but not at my expense.
But it doesn't ban them from politics.
It bans them from electioneering when they agree to be classified as 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations.
Nothing/nobody forces them to be incorporated as non-profits. When churches agree to that tax designation they are doing so knowing full well what the rules & restrictions are. And the rules are the same for all 501(c)(3) groups - churches or not.
The solutions are simple. A church can abandon its 501(c)(3) status & engage in electioneering (and start paying taxes). Or it can reincorporate itself under a different designation. For instance, as a PAC. It can even create two (or more) technically separate organizations in the exact way that everyone from the NRA to Planned Parenthood have done for years.
But to say churches are banned from electioneering is totally false & misleading. Some churches just want to have their cake & eat it too.
You are correct. If they exempt me from paying taxes I will shut my political mouth from now on.
Not true at all. I saw Bob Dole speak at a church during the 1996 campaign. Many Republican candidates at the state & local levels appear in churches throughout Ohio (where I live) while campaigning.
Let churches pay taxes and they can say whatever they want. They have a choice.
Mosques do it all the time! But then that would not be PC.
Churches need not even file as a 501(c)(3) to be recognized as tax exempt. This is a fallacy and disinformation. A church, as a "religious, non-profit" organization should not be held to suppression of political speech.
Most churches are like mine in that there is no "profit" to tax anyway.
"I disagree with the IRS investigating any Church. It is sad that Churches don't have first amendment protection."
They have as much 1st ammendment protection as any other organization or person, as long as they pay the same tax rate. If you get subsidized by the government, you have to live by their rules/demands.
Of course, I support the FairTax legislation that would eliminate this at a Federal level.
The only Churches I wanted to see removed from the Tax Exempt status is all of them in my area that failed to shovel the snow all winter. I do a lot of walking and their blatent disrespect for their fellow community members made it clear that they don't value the community that subsidizes their existence.
By signing the document to become a tax exempt church....the church has given over its rights to the government...THAT church is mandated by the government. THERE IS NO SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE WITH THAT TAX EXEMPT STATUS. Read below. The whore is in bed with the beast.
Being a pastor today is a pretty lucrative proposition, from a strictly IRS tax perspective. Pastors get a special housing allowance paid for by the Church to cover the pastors mortgage and insurance including other living expenses. The pastor gets to deduct the mortgage interest on his house and gets to exclude the housing allowance from taxable income...pretty sweet huh? This only applies to IRS ministers. This also applies if the Pastor quits. He keeps the profit on his house even though it was paid for with the offerings of the Church. Here we may find at least part of the reason IRS pastors were so silent when, for the first time in American History, the IRS seized a American Christian Church. The Indianapolis Baptist Temple was seized by the IRS on February 13, 2001. Scores of Armed Federal Agents (after getting the go-ahead from 'Born Again' Ashcroft and Bush) removed the pastor and parishioners for income tax violations. These so-called tax violations were procedural only and did not cheat the Government out of one red cent. The Pastor did not withhold income taxes from employees who were acting as independent contractors even though the employees reported the income and paid the taxes separately. It seems the IRS is not interested in the tax money, but in the CONTROL and REPORTING that comes with the IRS's Lordship over the Church.
This seizure is most strange because when Jesse Jackson clearly violated the Law by:
using Tax free foundation money to house a mistress and pay for an illegitimate child
raising money in Black Churches for his Presidential Campaign (Clearly Illegal)
no one prosecuted him or seized his assets.
That is surprising, and I would appreciate any links that you might have.
Our church lawyer and the Diocese Lawyers in 1992 sent out several letters, documents and copies of canon law stating that we could lose our non profit status for allowing any politician running for office to speak or anyone supporting a politician running for office speaking officially. Every election since then, we are reminded about the no politics re our non profit status.
I actually had a sit-down with my minister on Sunday after service over where the lines should be drawn. There were some people in the church who were gathering signatures (in the lobby on Sunday morning) on a petition, which I would have signed gladly had it been presented to me in from of a supermarket. I expressed to him my concern that the church as body not be directly political. We cannot in good faith ask the government to stay out of our churches if our churches are not willing to stay out of the government. That's the deal you make when you file as a tax exempt organization.
I seem to recall a DU/MoveOn effort to get conservative churches investigated for the same thing in 2004, and only a few out of sixty-some were found out of compliance by the feds. Seems more have been appropriately added to the list recently.
Many churches have dropped or are considering dropping tax-exempt status to allow uncensored/unpunished speech from the pulpit. It's time.
bump
So, what about other non-profits and their political speech?
Bump for later
I know absolutely nothing about the tax code so I can't discuss the legalities of this with you. Churches are a business, they have investment portfolios, real estate, and power. They want to act like a business, they should be treated like a business.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1363096/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1349958/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1335649/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1320563/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1295847/posts
I threw in a couple of posts that I have read that made me realize that churches are as morally corrupt now as they were in the past.
501(c)(3) specifics:
http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=96099,00.html
And that is where the problem lies. That clearly Congress regulating the establishment of a religion. But oh well, those are just the actual words from the Constitution. We all know that the real meaning is that the Church shall not be involved in politics.
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