Pastors Pick a Tax Fight With IRS

[Flagg]

MSNBC

Pastors try to pick a tax fight with IRS
Hundreds expected to join call to use sermons to flout restriction on election campaigning

By STEPHANIE STROM

This weekend, hundreds of pastors, including some of the nation’s evangelical leaders, will climb into their pulpits to preach about American politics, flouting a decades-old law that prohibits tax-exempt churches and other charities from campaigning on election issues.

The sermons, on what is called Pulpit Freedom Sunday, essentially represent a form of biblical bait, an effort by some churches to goad the Internal Revenue Service into court battles over the divide between religion and politics.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit legal defense group whose founders include James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, sponsors the annual event, which started with 33 pastors in 2008. This year, Glenn Beck has been promoting it, calling for 1,000 religious leaders to sign on and generating additional interest at the beginning of a presidential election cycle.

“There should be no government intrusion in the pulpit,” said the Rev. James Garlow, senior pastor at Skyline Church in La Mesa, Calif., who led preachers in the battle to pass California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. “The freedom of speech and the freedom of religion promised under the First Amendment means pastors have full authority to say what they want to say.”

Mr. Garlow said he planned to inveigh against same-sex marriage, abortion and other touchstone issues that social conservatives oppose, and some ministers may be ready to encourage parishioners to vote only for those candidates who adhere to the same views or values.

“I tell them that as followers of Christ, you wouldn’t vote for someone who was against what God said in his word,” Mr. Garlow said. “I will, in effect, oppose several candidates and — de facto — endorse others.”

Two Republican candidates in particular, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, would presumably benefit from some pulpit politics on Sunday, since they have been courting Christian conservatives this year.

Participating ministers plan to send tapes of their sermons to the I.R.S., effectively providing the agency with evidence it could use to take them to court.

But if history is any indication, the I.R.S. may continue to steer clear of the taunts.

“It’s frustrating,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel at Alliance Defense. “The law is on the books but they don’t enforce it, leaving churches in limbo.”

Supporters of the law are equally vexed by the tax agency’s perceived inaction. “We have grave concerns over the current inability of the I.R.S. to enforce the federal tax laws applicable to churches,” a group of 13 ministers in Ohio wrote in a letter to the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, in July.

Marcus Owens, the lawyer representing the Ohio ministers, warned that the I.R.S.’s failure to pursue churches for politicking violations would encourage more donations to support their efforts, taking further advantage of the new leeway given to advocacy groups under the Supreme Court’s decision last year in the Citizens United case.

Lois G. Lerner, director of the agency’s Exempt Organizations Division, said in an e-mail that “education has been and remains the first goal of the I.R.S.’s program on political activity by tax-exempt organizations.” The agency has posted “guidance” on what churches can and cannot do on its Web site.

The agency says it has continued to do audits of some churches, but those are not disclosed. Mr. Stanley, Mr. Owens and other lawyers say they are virtually certain it has no continuing audits of church political activity, an issue that has been a source of contention in recent elections.

The alliance and many other advocates regard a 1954 law prohibiting churches and their leaders from engaging in political campaigning as a violation of the First Amendment and wish to see the issue played out in court. The organization points to the rich tradition of political activism by churches in some of the nation’s most controversial battles, including the pre-Revolutionary war opposition to taxation by the British, slavery and child labor.

The legislation, sponsored by Lyndon Baines Johnson, then a senator, muzzled all charities in regards to partisan politics, and its impact on churches may have been an unintended consequence. At the time, he was locked in a battle with two nonprofit groups that were loudly calling him a closet communist.

Thirty years later, a group of senators led by Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, passed legislation to try to rein in the agency a bit in doing some audits. While audits of churches continued over the years, they appeared to have slowed down considerably after a judge rebuffed the agency’s actions in a case involving the Living Word Christian Center and a supposed endorsement of Ms. Bachmann in 2007. The I.R.S. had eliminated positions through a reorganization, and therefore, according to the judge, had not followed the law when determining who could authorize such audits.
Vote: Should churches be allowed to campaign?

Sarah Hall Ingram, the I.R.S. commissioner responsible for the division that oversees nonprofit groups, said the agency was still investigating such cases. “We have churches under audit,” Ms. Hall Ingram said. “Maybe they just aren’t the clients of the people you’re talking to.”

None of the churches involved in previous pulpit Sunday events have received anything beyond a form letter from the I.R.S. thanking them for the tapes, Mr. Stanley said. “They haven’t done anything to clarify what the law is and what pastors can and can’t say,“ he said.

Mr. Owens, the lawyer representing the Ohio churches, said that Ms. Lerner had told a meeting of state charity regulators in late 2009 that the agency was no longer doing such audits. “I have not heard of a single church audit since then,” Mr. Owens said.

He said the agency could have churches under audit for civil fraud or criminal investigation. “I know of at least one of those,” he said.

Ms. Lerner said she could not recall what she had said at the meeting. Grant Williams, an I.R.S. spokesman, declined to describe the type of church audits the agency was doing or their number.

Last year, the I.R.S. also quietly ceased its Political Activities Compliance Initiative, under which it issued reports in 2004 and 2006 detailing its findings of illegal political campaigning by charities, including churches.

Paul Streckfus, a former I.R.S. official who publishes a newsletter about legal and tax developments in the tax-exempt world, said the reports had served as an alert. “They also gave us some idea of how big the problem of noncompliance actually was, and that the I.R.S. was actually doing something about it,” Mr. Streckfus said.

Mr. Garlow said he planned to outline where the candidates stood on various issues and then discuss what the Bible said about those issues, calling on church members to stand by their religious principles.

“The Bible says render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” he said. “But Caesar is demanding more and more of what was once considered God’s matter, and pastors have been bullied and intimidated enough.”

This article, "The Political Pulpit," first appeared in The New York Times.

Copyright © 2011 The New York Times

Oh, please please please please please let this not be a concussion based delusion I'll wake up from! These clowns are going to get their asses handed to them and I can't fucking wait.

[Highlord Laan]

No, they won't. The IRS will choke, and the fanatic neanderthals will be allowed to flout the law to their hearts content.

[Flagg]

It's pretty hard to ignore when they send in videos of themselves breaking the law on this large a scale.

[The Yosemite Bear]

the budget to prosecute offenders has been slashed, and they haven't gone after anyone since the Westburro asshats and the scientoligists still flaunt it anyways.

[Norseman]

No, they won't. The IRS will choke, and the fanatic neanderthals will be allowed to flout the law to their hearts content.

Pretty much this, I mean look at what happened when a certain Hollywood religion that shall be unnamed decided they wanted tax-exemption. The IRS talked a tough game, but then folded as hundreds of adherents filed various lawsuits against them. Now try to do the same against a group that is a lot larger and has a lot more political capital. No, the IRS will break on this.

[The Yosemite Bear]

erm- I've already mentioned the children of Hubbard, as well as the westburro assholes. the only ones who have been raped were the dino fundy theme park....

[Darth Fanboy]

Matthew 22:21 is apparently alien to these folks.

[bobalot]

Conservative (mainly white) religious Americans simply think that the rules don't apply to them. How is this surprising? Seriously?

Unfortunately, I'm increasingly seeing this type of behaviour in Australia, where religious groups feel unconditional entitlement to taxpayer assistance and loudly demand it.

[Kanastrous]

It's worse than not believing the rules don't apply to them. It's a belief that by violating the law they are good soldiers for Christ, and if anything deserve hosannas for doing it. Alas the IRS is unlikely to do anything about it. Although lacking a background in tax law I don't see why there would need to be much more to it, than "we have in hand video of Pastor X politicking from his pulpit. Now his church's tax exemption is stricken and they start paying taxes like any other business, today.

[SCRawl]

Although lacking a background in tax law I don't see why there would need to be much more to it, than "we have in hand video of Pastor X politicking from his pulpit. Now his church's tax exemption is stricken and they start paying taxes like any other business, today.

The problem is that things wouldn't end there. Think it all the way through. If the IRS just pencil-whips them out of their tax-exempt status, in short order the church would find themselves in serious arrears. The church wouldn't be paying their taxes, of course, so the government would either have to suck on it or, eventually, close them down, with all of the drama that would accompany such an action. And this is aside from the (almost certain) lawsuits that would follow loss of their tax status.

To be honest, I'd be fine with dumping their tax-exempt status. Churches don't need them, since they should be non-profits anyway.

[Kanastrous]

Actually I kind of figured that the whole into-arrears-lose-their-property-get-shut-down train of consequences is what we would all pretty much expect, and so didn't see the need to mention it. From my perspective that's pretty much a happy ending, although of course congregants accustomed to attending the churches in question would surely see it differently.

[SCRawl]

Actually I kind of figured that the whole into-arrears-lose-their-property-get-shut-down train of consequences is what we would all pretty much expect, and so didn't see the need to mention it. From my perspective that's pretty much a happy ending, although of course congregants accustomed to attending the churches in question would surely see it differently.

And further to that, they would cause a huge kerfuffle of the type your president tries desperately to avoid. The political cost to such a course of action would be enormous, as would the monetary costs of attempting to implement it. I'm the last guy who would sympathize with the plight of the churches, but this one could blow up in everyone's face.

Mind you, I don't believe that the government should just roll over and take this. You can't have these (effectively) state-sponsored entities campaigning for one political party. I just don't know how the IRS can effectively block it and still be able to operate afterward.

The pastors should be completely within their rights to preach to their flocks about their political preferences. They just can't do it behind their pulpits, because those are subsidized by the government.

[Norseman]

It's worse than not believing the rules don't apply to them. It's a belief that by violating the law they are good soldiers for Christ, and if anything deserve hosannas for doing it. Alas the IRS is unlikely to do anything about it. Although lacking a background in tax law I don't see why there would need to be much more to it, than "we have in hand video of Pastor X politicking from his pulpit. Now his church's tax exemption is stricken and they start paying taxes like any other business, today.

If the IRS try to pick a fight over this they will be forced to spend enormous amounts of resources and in the end they will be forced to back down. The IRS knows this, which is why they are never, ever going to pick a fight over it. Either you apply this evenly, in which case you are about to be hit with hundreds of simultaneous lawsuits appealing your decision. Or you apply this selectively, in which case there are fewer lawsuits but they can plausibly make arguments like discrimination. Then of course you have the political cost of this, no politician in the USA can afford to support the IRS in this matter. Expect to see the "Defence of Religious Freedom Act" come up in Congress within a matter of weeks, and for it to be political suicide to fail to support it. That is political suicide *even for democrats* and even if they're in a mostly liberal constituency.

Now you may talk about the law, you may talk about government subsidies, you may talk about how you shouldn't be forced to subsidise religious activities. I got news for you: You are shit outta luck! Or to use a pretentious quote, "Inter arma enim silent leges".

[CaptainChewbacca]

I don't like it when my church tells me how to vote. Every other year my pastor has a sermon where he goes through the sample ballot vote-by-vote to tell us how a Christian should do things.

God gave me a mind, heart, and conscience for a reason, I'm gonna use them.

[Kanastrous]

Is that a widespread sentiment in your congregation (assuming you've discussed it with fellow congregants)? Do people tend to view it as valuable guidance, or as petty interference?

[Molyneux]

I don't like it when my church tells me how to vote. Every other year my pastor has a sermon where he goes through the sample ballot vote-by-vote to tell us how a Christian should do things.

God gave me a mind, heart, and conscience for a reason, I'm gonna use them.

Just curious, but why don't you talk back? Have you tried talking to your pastor one-on-one and telling him just how inappropriate (and illegal) it is for him to be doing that?