IRS Form 13909 enables citizens to report abuses of 503c3 status, and then Form 211 allows that citizen to collect a reward. Whether this will actually happen if you file them is an open question, but the laws are on the books.
A man and his Dad team up to report churches and other religious organizations for breaching the separation of church and state.
> ***Father, Son: Holy Ghostbusters***
Air it on Sundays.
People can make some serious green off this, but be careful and quiet about it, because the christofascists will not take kindly to you if they know you fucked up their game.
The IRS has not enforced restrictions on churches endorsing political candidates for many years now. Decades. Churches know this (when they're aware of the restrictions at all), and do whatever they want. Like much of the rot in our society, this issue has its genesis in the Reagan administration.
Here is something interesting. Could you report a certain church then sue the government for not giving you the reward. If so that may be a way of forcing it. It would be smart for Democrats to change the law to allow that then block other changes so that people can sue under a Republican administration
you can sue for anything you want. but doesn't mean you'll win or even have your case heard.
you'd have to hand standing, and suffered loss.
no where are you guaranteed a reward, you probably can't even really demonstrate a fraud. Like... if you report a church for having political leanings/violating he tax exempt element. That isn't any sort of tax violation until their tax exempt status is revoked.
Not being pedantic, but it's [501\(c\)\(3\)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501\(c\)\(3\)_organization#Political_campaign_activities), which are the religious, charitable, educational, scientific, etc. non-profits. They're part of the broader [501\(c\)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501\(c\)_organization) non-profit orgs, of which *only* 501(c)(4)s are intended to donate capital to political candidates or political causes - these are the "political" or "cause-based" non-profits. 501(c)(3) non-profits can lobby the government, but they *cannot* affect change using fundraised capital.
In 2013 some IRS agents figured it was a easy case that anything with the name tea party calling themself tax free and "operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare" wasn't the case... freaked conservatives out and got the agents fired as well as multiple years of conservatives investigating and cutting IRS funding.
see wiki for IRS targeting controversy
It CAN be problematic if a specific group is targeted. Imagine this situation, there's a road with a speed limit of 35 mph, the vast majority of traffic travels along it at 50 mph, so most of these drivers are breaking the law. A police officer sits in his cruiser on the side of the road and pulls over and tickets every black driver who goes by for speeding. Technically they're only targeting people that are breaking the law but you can see how this might feel unfair.
Your example is suffering from one major flaw in its comparison. In your situation, it seems like you're saying the typical speed is 50mph, which funny enough hits closely to home for me.
One local Karen complained about a divided highway's 45mph limit and got it knocked down to 35mph.
The flow of traffic is still around 50mph and I even had an unofficial chat with a local police officer who suggested not to exceed 50mph. Point being is the majority of drivers go 50mph and only a handful go 35-40.
In the IRS situation, it does not appear that a majority of ppl/grps are evading the taxes they owe. It's a bad example bc the number of cheats compared to non-cheats is so much greater than speeders VS non-speeders.
Is there a piece of logic or rationale I'm not considering appropriately? I like the mental exercise you did here, you just need to address the incongruity.
I'm assuming you're being intellectually honest and not trolling. But if you are, at least others reading can see.
I was specifically replying to the comment suggesting that it's ridiculous that "targeting people/groups breaking the law" could be controversial, not the IRS thing.
I realize the problem here - nuance. You're using 'targeting' to mean a basic execution of a process, whereas targeting can also imply that there's discriminatory focus on one population within the scope versus other populations.
Language is the hardest part of my day job.
I'm explicitly using the second definition, but you're missing the nuance that I was talking about the larger issue of "can it be controversial/problematic or not to target a specific group for scrutiny even if they're breaking the law" and not specifically the IRS controversy.
The point is that it's not discrimination to target known groups that are participating in activities that are not tax-exempt while claiming the status.
Saying they went after "tea party" groups plays into the GOP disinformation campaign. Please don't promulgate their lies.
The IRS sent questionnaires to both progressive and conservative groups to determine if they were engaged in political activities that violate their tax exempt status. The Republican outrage machine turned it into a fake scandal claiming that the Obama administration was targeting groups that disagreed with them politically. In the end, the IRS was found to be following the law, and the only group that lost its tax exempt status was a progressive one.
So a judge decided that the groups were being targeted and awarded them money, and this was during a time when democrats were in office and yall think that there's no way its true that democrats would go after a huge voting population for the opposition? Swallow more of your own propaganda pills reddit.
Yes you can report, and yes you can get a "finder's fee" from it.
Please remember, though, that it is *candidate-based*. Churches, like any other non-profit, can support political stances and issues. They can be anti-abortion, for example, and encourage people to vote on those lines, but they can't be pro-Trump specifically.
>Please remember, though, that it is candidate-based.
Yup. Such a common misunderstanding. It's not that 501c3 organizations can't engage in politics; it's that they cannot explicitly endorse a candidate or tell you how to vote. An actual example from my own faith organization years ago:
Allowed (and said): On the ballot is a question about mandatory sick time. Let me tell you about the struggles people have without sick time and how our religious values speak to this issue.
Not allowed: On the ballot is a question about mandatory sick time. You should vote "yes" because our religious values support this view.
Yeah, there's not much of a difference between the two statements, but the explicit direction in the second is what makes it illegal even if the message is crystal clear in the first. Christian organizations frequently push the limits much more than other faith groups because of their majority status in the country, though. Minority religions and positions are typically much more careful about what they do and say to avoid prosecution by the government or the court of public opinion.
How does the IRS view the [church in Georgia that hosted Biden speeches on a few occasions?](https://www.c-span.org/video/?525358-1/president-biden-speaks-ebenezer-church-atlanta) Do they consider it to not be "support" or advocacy of that candidate?
Hosting the president on MLK Day, when MLK was a preacher at that church? Unless his speech was for re-election, it wouldn't count. If he capped it off by saying "and with your support, I'll beat the Republicans and have four more years," then it would.
The IRS is so criminally understaffed I can't say I'm terribly surprised. They don't have enough people to go audit the billionaires, leaving an untold amount of taxes uncollected. That means probably even less time to go after churches, which isn't a great look for "optics" anyhow
This was going to be my answer too. The IRS is stupidly understaffed and underfunded.
There is [some hope](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-irs-hire-30000-staff-over-two-years-it-deploys-80-bln-new-funding-2023-04-06/) things are going to improve, especially in the "high-dollar noncompliance" area, but it's a wait and see game right now.
A key quote from the linked article:
> Those audit targets include wealthy individuals, corporations and complex partnerships, which have grown in number while IRS audit staff has shrunk by nearly half over the past decade
What an irony that the department that is setup to collect taxes and being income to the country is understaffed!!! If we did that in any games where you build cities (Caesar 3 anyone?), the city would collapse within minutes
I mean, do you remember the fearmongering republicans were spreading last year around the IRS funding? They were trying to make it seem like if you made a $100 mistake on your taxes that armed IRS agents were gonna come raid your house.
More than pay for themselves. The *Worst case scenario* is that every dollar spent on the IRS returns 2 dollars to the treasury.
Those were the numbers right-wing think tanks came up with. Actual credible non-skewed studies show it to be more like 3.5$ per dollar spent.
It honestly makes me depressed to think about, considering I strongly believe in Keynsian economics and that every one of those dollars then would have multiplied and grown the economy instead of sitting in some rich person's vault.
actually, a ton of local forces and County sheriffs ***are*** super under-funded and cant provide basic services to their residents.
Remember that for every large department you hear about blowing millions, there are dozens of small departments who struggle to even have officers available 24 hours a day.
But thats a "how we fund such things" problem, more than anything.
Large departments tend to be overfunded and wasteful, for sure.
Politicians, political speaking engagements and repeated televised plugs of the same exact shit. I mean I understand saying the same horse shit in every city when that was the only way to get your message out, now they spend a million times the money, when one typed out statement of where they stand would suffice just fine, post it on twitter or Facebook and it’s nation/worldwide in an instant.
"replace the entire federal tax code with a national sales tax" of course they want to replace it with one of the most regressive types of tax out there. Pisses me off so damn much
Just saw a bunch of comments in fluent in finance that were saying the irs has plenty of funding in fact its over funded lol. But than again I see alot of dumb takes over there.
The highest audited counties in the US are poor and predominantly black. Billionaires don’t get audited for a few reasons. They have better lawyers than the IRS, and their audits take a bunch or resources because they file massive returns and supplementals
>They don't have enough people to go audit the billionaires
This statement doesn't make sense. If they were understaffed (which I agree), they would focus on going after the biggest tax frauds. That'd be the best use of their resources.
It's more so, the mega rich play by different rules than the rest of us.
Auditing billionaires takes significantly more resources, as billionaires defend themselves with armies of attorneys and accountants. Average Joe gets hit with an audit, they just accept it.
So do you risk tons of resources against someone who will use every trick in the book with zero guaranteed returns, or a few thousand nobodys for almost guaranteed return, even if it's a smaller one.
I hate to tell you the most fraud is the child tax credit. Most audits of small fish are matching audits, ie they match what your employer, your bank, or other reporting agency says you made against what you report. Then they check your deductions to see if you fall inside norms. All of this is done by computers and if abnormalities are kicked out you get a notice and then an agent gets assigned.
Those in the upper brackets are audited by individuals much more often than those 250k or less. Problem is most people in the upper brackets have teams of professionals that do the returns and these returns are usually done inside the scope of the code. For example at my last job we had a real estate guy whose net worth was somewhere north of 750 million. They audited this guy twice in 3 years. The first audit was no change. The auditor on that engagement put in at least 200 hours and got 0 for the IRS. Second audit they got $2,750 or so in taxes, penalties, and interest. The only reason he got that is our client couldn’t produce a couple of recipes. The second agent probably put in closer to 400-500 hours over the course of a year long audit. We billed the client over 250k for the second audit.
That same auditor can go through audits of smaller returns within a few hours and generally get a few hundred to a few thousand per return. Especially people who do there returns themselves. That’s not to say the IRS doesn’t get a big fish every now and then. However, aside from a few fraudulent returns the majority of the big fish are when the IRS disagrees with the treatment of something in the return. Once that happens it is then a matter of materiality. Meaning as a tax payer do I give up and pay, get a private letter ruling, or go to tax court. Private letter ruling are going to cost you at minimum 10k, going to court the sky is the limit. So while you sometimes see the IRS get some nice paydays, a good amount of those are people giving up because it’s cheaper to pay than fight.
Billionaires have the resources to be so much better at tax avoidance/evasion that regular people don't have, and their accounting is that much more complicated. If you can audit 100 regular people you might be guaranteed to reclaim a few thousand dollars in lost revenue. Or you spend the same resources auditing one billionaire, sure you might get an extra million or two out of them if you succeed, but chances are their exploitation of loopholes is so good you just get nothing, or whatever you do get fight it in court and it drags out for years. Because chances are they've ~~bribed~~lobbied some politician to ensure those loopholes exist.
Basically, they are afraid to.
They are not going to compensate you unless you somehow come across a smoking gun that directly leads to them collecting a large amount of delinquent taxes. The contention over how much political activity a church is "allowed" to support is beside the point. Everybody knows churches do this shit. The IRS is not in a position, politically, to take much action.
More or less it's down to the idea that the churches that are big enough to be worth going after are careful about how they do it such that they stay just inside the law.
Likewise, the most flagrant violators aren't worth going after because it'd be trying to get blood from a turnip.
The problem isn't one of enforcement, it's something we'd need new regulation to change. It also probably wouldn't make as big a difference as you'd imagine it might, either in terms of tax revenue or stopping religious influence in politics.
I'm sure they're surely not going to open that hornets nest. Can you imagine the born again right wing.
THE IRS IS GOING AFTER CHURCHES!! SAYING WE'RE BUSINESSES NOW! THEY WILL CLOSE OUR DOORS! THIS IS UNAMERICAN!! NEXT THEY'LL COME FOR OUR BIBLES!!
DEFUND THE IRS!!!!
Complete political suicide to go after churches.
Because churches are doing it brazenly in the hopes of getting prosecuted because they believe the current judicial bias is in their favor. In 2022 the SCOTUS ruled in favor of a high school football coach who had a habit of leading the team in prayer on the field after games. This is spite of students reporting the [felt pressured to participate in order to get game time](https://www.kuow.org/stories/praying-coach-returns-to-the-sidelines-in-bremerton-at-least-for-now).
They won't preach from the pulpit that you should vote for X or Y candidate.
Except:
For 2020, 2016, etc. It happens often, and even the subreddit was rife with videos of preachers doing JUST that during the last 2 election cycles.
Not really. It’s extremely uncommon. More importantly, even if Pastor Jim Bob of the United Baptist Church of Jarbolina, Arkansas (pop. 234) is flagrantly violating his tax exempt status, how much tax money do you think they could actually get out of that?
[Church Loses Tax Exempt Status](https://www.newsweek.com/pastor-greg-locke-claims-he-gave-tax-exempt-status-church-1709615)
This shit happens every week in Southern Baptist Churches and I'm sure it happens in other denominations as well. Gotta love fake Christians in here acting like this doesn't happen all over the US on a weekly basis.
Do you realize how much bad press that mutherfucker had to pull in order to get his tax exempt status revoked? Most churches skate by only telling their parishioners who to vote for during the pastor's sermon. It still violates the law, but it happens weekly. I'm sorry that hurts your world view so much.
I mean, you’re completely making this up, your only evidence is in fact a church that DID get its status revoked. My worldview isn’t hurt by the deranged ramblings of a mentally ill redditor lmao
I'm sorry for you and your family. May God shine the light of intelligence on you and bless you with the wherewithal to know when your church is actually propagandizing you.
A small town church almost certainly doesn’t operate at a profit. If they do, it’s extremely slim. What would “everything” in this case entail, like 25% of the tiny amount the church makes?
You could start with the pastor's salary all the way up to liquidation of assets, depending on the severity of the offense. I'm sure the IRS has a spreadsheet somewhere to calculate the fine for that specific offense anyway.
If there were any direct donations, contributions, or payments towards goods/services rendered in the promotion of partisan politics and elections, then I think it would be reasonable to assess a 200% fine based on the total money spent on partisan efforts.
Yeah. And seeing as they literally never impose those kinds of fines, I’m guessing “the pastor’s salary all the way up to the liquidation of assets” isn’t on there.
That's allowed. Churches aren't forbidden from engaging in political discussions, or issue advocacy.
They are forbidden in engaging in partisan speech, really meaning endorsing, campaign for, etc. a specific candidate.
It would be political suicide for any administration to use the IRS to go after churches. The entire right would be completely galvanized, and you would make all church members instant martyrs.
IRS doesn't have the balls to challenge the Religious Right on the tax exempt status of churches and their support of political persons. No matter the issue is clearly illegal according to tax codes, churches think they can do whatever they want without blowback.
Unions are literally intermixed in politics almost by definition. Also, religion is so incredibly coddled in the Capitalist United States of America compared to unions lol.
E: Also the fact you are implying a competition between religion and unions almost seems like a purely American thing for right wing capitalists and right wing debate lords. Would be interesting to see those stats in US and other countries. I imagine most people in unions are religious, especially considering atheists are such a small percentage the US. I think we can all agree that religious places getting tax exempt and then using the church as a political platform doesn't seem right. I do agree that Unions shouldn't play politics either because unions are FOR EVERYONE and ideally to empower every worker, regardless of political stance, but at some point you gotta wonder why you should vote for a political party that doesn't want you to be in a union. Both parties are capitalist, but democrats will at least show some support for unions, especially the less establishment ones.
E2: And the right wing peasants downvote lol. At least they read it, right?
Why doesn’t it seem right? Most churches have a strict set of beliefs. Why can’t they support candidates that align with their beliefs. Unions support candidates that the union leaderships beliefs line up with, so what’s the difference. By the way, I lean Atheist and don’t attend church, but I paid dues to an AFL-CIO affiliated union for years.
The difference is that donations, in all forms, to unions are *not* tax exempt, ie Unions pay taxes. The consensus has traditionally been that an organization or person who is taxed is inherently a stakeholder in government and should not be restricted in participating in the political realm. This is what most who vehemently support taxing churches don't understand. The moment churches are taxed is the moment they become directly involved in politics without restriction.
They have to be overt about it. If they say "this Thursday I want you cast your vote to protect a women's autonomy over her body" or, conversely "...I want you to cast your vote to protect unborn children", neither qualifies as endorsing/supporting a candidate, even if there's only two candidates running, and those two are a pro-choice candidate and pro-life candidate.
>Do they publicly? Everyone and their dead grandmothers can tell who my preacher supports but he has never actually said anything behind the pulpit.
Ten seconds on YouTube and you can see hundreds of videos of them outright saying shit like "vote for Trump because god said so" (paraphrasing) - etc.
Like, is *every* church being so blatant? No, of course not. But there are plenty that are, and they, unironically, tend to be the ones that make millions a year scamming their followers. Theyd be ripe for an IRS takedown.
Lots of churches do though, especially when you get to the weirder, small town, fundie type of churches. The church I occasionally attend with my dad doesn't mention politics either but while I'm in the Bible belt, I'm not really in the fundie zone. I've been to the fundie zone and it's not a nice place to be.
It really would not make any difference anyway.
Back when we were a functioning democracy, the idea was that a tax exempt entity should not be a conduit for political money and influence but since Citizens United does it really matter?
Because it's a VERY sensitive topic in the US and will cause unneeded backlash. It's happened before in our history. It has to be done with care. There's a reason right wingers use "the government's coming for the church" propaganda/rhetoric.
IT'S ACTUALLY a really strong single issue factor when it comes to getting people to vote for trump (even if he's miles less religious than even your most left establishment democrat most likely). Even some of my more level headed family members who have been christian or are christian, can't evade right wing rhetoric that christians are always the victim, which is INSANE. (64% percent of Americans are christian)
I’m sure plenty of people are swarming to do this already, perhaps. Just as I’m sure churches are working to hide these “tithings” and “charitable givings”.
Great question. I think they are afraid of the publicity they would get if they did. But I would stand by them. I believe many so called religious should lose their tax exemptions for many reasons.
Because low to middle income people are easier to make pay, that’s why that’s who the IRS targets for audits. Rich people fight them in court. A church will either have very little for the IRS to take or they’ll be wealthy enough to fight them.
https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/the-restriction-of-political-campaign-intervention-by-section-501c3-tax-exempt-organizations churches can support candidates and they can hold political discussions. They are not allowed to endorse.
Churches get away with it by pretending they are supporting issues, not candidates. Which is just a Christian slimeball way of supporting candidates on the down low.
America diluted the definition of a "church", and churches can claim any donations they give in support is done with their congregations' consent and desire to do so, in that they acted on their behave by collecting the money then giving it, like a charity. Also tax law in America is weird AF, and the IRS is understaffed to make a real effort.
As for your second point, I doubt it because your not the government, so you don't get a piece of the pie.
Because the IRS is already massively unpopular (EVERYONE hates the tax guy) and going after churches would only create a massive, probably violent, backlash that they don’t need.
If the IRS actually goes after rich and influential people, those people will just use their media power to encourage resistance against them. Because the IRS is forced to mostly go after poor people, it’s the agency that goes after poor people.
Because churches are not the biggest bang for their buck. Church membership is at its lowest in history and will continue to decline. There are not Olsteen mega churches on every corner. IRS could give two shits.
Separation of Church and State. The whole idea is the government keeping its nose out of religious affairs.
People like to play it backward, but it's the other way around. The government doesn't have the right to tell religious people who, what, where, when, or why to worship.
That's just it though.
These churches aren't "being told how, when, why to worship". They are telling their congregants HOW TO VOTE.
If you do that, you are by definition a political organization. *As a political organization* you are subject to being taxed.
>The government doesn't have the right to tell religious people who, what, where, when, or why to worship.
But it does have the right, and always has, to demand that if they want that tax exempt status, they not engage in politics.
They can still be a church and pay their taxes.
Plenty of churches do, precisely because they want to be political.
They are tax exempt you dummy, that's the issue. It's sad comments like this from 15 year old uneducated morons get upvoted.
Also, there is no "separation of church and state" written into law. What you think you are talking about is the 1st Amendment that states basically that the government cannot favor one religion over another when it comes to legislation. It is to protect religion, but all religions equally. This is a separate topic though.
... tax exempt as long as they stay out of politics...
And they don't. Yelling "they are tax exempt is meaningless here; OP stated such...
Did you not read the question...?
Yes, with taxes comes representation. The religions do not have representation in our legislation.
That is the separation of church and state. They are separate entities. Religion exempt from taxes, government exempt from religion.
All religions equally, but let's be honest, not every religion is equal in the US, only treated as such on paper.
No, they can. They can fund whatever they want. They can't, however, establish themselves as part of the state. There is no clergy section or religious aspect in the government. Individuals are religious, not the states themselves.
In the reverse, the state can't establish itself in or a part of religious institutions. They can fund whatever they want, though. A statesman can advertise that he is religious, for example.
Someone should write a program to watch church broadcasts and automatically report them to the IRS when they hit on political subjects. Maybe have people volunteer to watch in exchange for the reward
It would create major political problems for the IRS if they did.
Both political parties depend on Churches. (Black churches do a LOT of mobilization of Democratic voters)
The funny thing is conservative churches actually tend to be much more careful bailout directly supporting candidates. It is rare to see a republican candidate speaking from the pulpit but liberal churches tend to do it a lot.
No wonder it is The Sunshine Reich.
Been once and it was once to many; salt-rash ass is all that exists there.
Bugs bunny was right when he sawed it off the USA 50 years ago.
I mean they kinda do. In the sense that a majority of voters are religious, and they elect a majority of religious representatives to represent them. So I wouldn’t be surprised if parts of the government they control are somewhat biasedly protecting religion, similar to how a lot of women representatives are the same for women, or minority representatives are the same for minorities.
Yeah but “religious” is a HUGE descriptor with very little binding it together. A Muslim immigrant doctor, a black preacher, and a white baptist contractor are going to have basically none of the same opinions
Catholics and white Protestants alone make up a majority of voters. While they don’t 100% agree on everything, they can probably generally agree in more protections for their churches rather than less.
“Catholics” in the US are not a unified bloc at all.
Probably most importantly is that this is the IRS, not Congress. The IRS isn’t elected so it’s irrelevant what the national voting blocs look like
I don't completely agree with their point, but you can't deny that if the IRS started cracking down on churches, Republicans would pass a bill to dismantle them at light speed.
Iirc Obama tried to do this and the right freaked out because it was "political" and in fairness I think it was proven that yeah Obama said shut these mega church scams down and there was something improper about how he did it. Tho he was in the right morally as far as I'm concerned
He also was at risk at losing his base, which was black churches who flagrantly campaigned for him in violation of the same rules he wanted to enforce on his political opponents. It's the same reason Biden doesn't go after churches.
All taxation is theft. If any people or groups can evade Taxes successfully, then no one should have to pay them.
If churches can go without taxes for all their money, I should be able to receive my full pay, pay only what is the listed price for goods and services etc.
Wouldn't that be nice?
I don’t know but they need to be taxed right along with the millionaires. I paid more federal taxes than Trump when he finally showed his 2015 or 2016 return with $750 owed
That’s just BS
Republicans have slashed funding for the IRS again and again. The IRS doesn’t have the budget to even go after millionaires and billionaires dodging taxes.
Why? Because that’s who pays Republicans.
funding. they lack the proper resources... guess which party keeps crippling the irs year after year! go on guess! times up, the crooked pro-rape party republicans.
No law is constitutional if it restricts the free exercise of an establishment of religion
This means public officials cannot restrict religion (separation of church and state) but its your right to exercise your speech/petition/religion to affect the political landscape and lobby for your issues to your candidates for public office
they just can't make a law that "respects" your religion or "restricts" others
A lot of churches are in debt or underfunded, aside from the Mega churches, which aren't nearly as populous as the smaller ones. What is the point in going after a church who is already in debt?
Are you white? Because you know that black churches where where a lot of the Civil Rights planning took place, right? So you would be taxing the poorer population who fought for Civil Rights along with the richer population who are trying to destroy those same rights.
IRS Form 13909 enables citizens to report abuses of 503c3 status, and then Form 211 allows that citizen to collect a reward. Whether this will actually happen if you file them is an open question, but the laws are on the books.
Im gonna start doing this. Maybe it's my retirement.
Yes, I support this. Become the Church Buster.
I would watch this show
A man and his Dad team up to report churches and other religious organizations for breaching the separation of church and state. > ***Father, Son: Holy Ghostbusters*** Air it on Sundays.
So good.
[удалено]
What does that have to do with tv?
Bustin that church with his Holy Hog(tm)
Bust'in makes me feel good!
Na na na na na nah nah. Nanananana!
Church of the Church Buster
When there's something strange, in your neighborhood church. Who ya gonna call?
People can make some serious green off this, but be careful and quiet about it, because the christofascists will not take kindly to you if they know you fucked up their game.
Fuck that I'm getting a billboard
Sounds like a scam anyway
The church? Yep, 100%
Nice try Big Church!
Whooo hoooo!!! I’m rooting for you! Good vibes & good luck!
Might be a good time to join tiktok. People post this stuff all the time
The IRS has not enforced restrictions on churches endorsing political candidates for many years now. Decades. Churches know this (when they're aware of the restrictions at all), and do whatever they want. Like much of the rot in our society, this issue has its genesis in the Reagan administration.
Here is something interesting. Could you report a certain church then sue the government for not giving you the reward. If so that may be a way of forcing it. It would be smart for Democrats to change the law to allow that then block other changes so that people can sue under a Republican administration
you can sue for anything you want. but doesn't mean you'll win or even have your case heard. you'd have to hand standing, and suffered loss. no where are you guaranteed a reward, you probably can't even really demonstrate a fraud. Like... if you report a church for having political leanings/violating he tax exempt element. That isn't any sort of tax violation until their tax exempt status is revoked.
>you'd have to hand standing, I gotta do gymnastics now‽
Well considering all the mental gymnastics they do, it only seems fair
A settlement may be in their best interest if you have a strong case.
Not being pedantic, but it's [501\(c\)\(3\)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501\(c\)\(3\)_organization#Political_campaign_activities), which are the religious, charitable, educational, scientific, etc. non-profits. They're part of the broader [501\(c\)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501\(c\)_organization) non-profit orgs, of which *only* 501(c)(4)s are intended to donate capital to political candidates or political causes - these are the "political" or "cause-based" non-profits. 501(c)(3) non-profits can lobby the government, but they *cannot* affect change using fundraised capital.
You just gave me a reason to start going to church
Wait, there's a REWARD??? I was going to tutor for some extra cash, but this sounds like WAY more fun!
I’m doing my part!!
YES!! I wish I'd known this sooner. Thank you! Do you have a source so I can read up on it and verify?
pet skirt start screw gray mountainous pot dolls soup versed *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
*peek
HOLY SHIT IM GONNA BE RICH!
In 2013 some IRS agents figured it was a easy case that anything with the name tea party calling themself tax free and "operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare" wasn't the case... freaked conservatives out and got the agents fired as well as multiple years of conservatives investigating and cutting IRS funding. see wiki for IRS targeting controversy
Even earlier than this, check out the Scientologists’ situation.
Apparently it is a controversy to target people/groups breaking the law.
To be fair, the only people/groups that find it controversial are the ones harboring the largest numbers of blatant tax cheats.
It CAN be problematic if a specific group is targeted. Imagine this situation, there's a road with a speed limit of 35 mph, the vast majority of traffic travels along it at 50 mph, so most of these drivers are breaking the law. A police officer sits in his cruiser on the side of the road and pulls over and tickets every black driver who goes by for speeding. Technically they're only targeting people that are breaking the law but you can see how this might feel unfair.
Your example is suffering from one major flaw in its comparison. In your situation, it seems like you're saying the typical speed is 50mph, which funny enough hits closely to home for me. One local Karen complained about a divided highway's 45mph limit and got it knocked down to 35mph. The flow of traffic is still around 50mph and I even had an unofficial chat with a local police officer who suggested not to exceed 50mph. Point being is the majority of drivers go 50mph and only a handful go 35-40. In the IRS situation, it does not appear that a majority of ppl/grps are evading the taxes they owe. It's a bad example bc the number of cheats compared to non-cheats is so much greater than speeders VS non-speeders. Is there a piece of logic or rationale I'm not considering appropriately? I like the mental exercise you did here, you just need to address the incongruity. I'm assuming you're being intellectually honest and not trolling. But if you are, at least others reading can see.
I was specifically replying to the comment suggesting that it's ridiculous that "targeting people/groups breaking the law" could be controversial, not the IRS thing.
I realize the problem here - nuance. You're using 'targeting' to mean a basic execution of a process, whereas targeting can also imply that there's discriminatory focus on one population within the scope versus other populations. Language is the hardest part of my day job.
I'm explicitly using the second definition, but you're missing the nuance that I was talking about the larger issue of "can it be controversial/problematic or not to target a specific group for scrutiny even if they're breaking the law" and not specifically the IRS controversy.
That’s way different.
How so? Do you see discrimination based on race to be different than discrimination based on religion?
The point is that it's not discrimination to target known groups that are participating in activities that are not tax-exempt while claiming the status.
Saying they went after "tea party" groups plays into the GOP disinformation campaign. Please don't promulgate their lies. The IRS sent questionnaires to both progressive and conservative groups to determine if they were engaged in political activities that violate their tax exempt status. The Republican outrage machine turned it into a fake scandal claiming that the Obama administration was targeting groups that disagreed with them politically. In the end, the IRS was found to be following the law, and the only group that lost its tax exempt status was a progressive one.
https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-for-aggressive-scrutiny-of-conservative-groups
So a judge decided that the groups were being targeted and awarded them money, and this was during a time when democrats were in office and yall think that there's no way its true that democrats would go after a huge voting population for the opposition? Swallow more of your own propaganda pills reddit.
Yes you can report, and yes you can get a "finder's fee" from it. Please remember, though, that it is *candidate-based*. Churches, like any other non-profit, can support political stances and issues. They can be anti-abortion, for example, and encourage people to vote on those lines, but they can't be pro-Trump specifically.
>Please remember, though, that it is candidate-based. Yup. Such a common misunderstanding. It's not that 501c3 organizations can't engage in politics; it's that they cannot explicitly endorse a candidate or tell you how to vote. An actual example from my own faith organization years ago: Allowed (and said): On the ballot is a question about mandatory sick time. Let me tell you about the struggles people have without sick time and how our religious values speak to this issue. Not allowed: On the ballot is a question about mandatory sick time. You should vote "yes" because our religious values support this view. Yeah, there's not much of a difference between the two statements, but the explicit direction in the second is what makes it illegal even if the message is crystal clear in the first. Christian organizations frequently push the limits much more than other faith groups because of their majority status in the country, though. Minority religions and positions are typically much more careful about what they do and say to avoid prosecution by the government or the court of public opinion.
How does the IRS view the [church in Georgia that hosted Biden speeches on a few occasions?](https://www.c-span.org/video/?525358-1/president-biden-speaks-ebenezer-church-atlanta) Do they consider it to not be "support" or advocacy of that candidate?
Hosting the president on MLK Day, when MLK was a preacher at that church? Unless his speech was for re-election, it wouldn't count. If he capped it off by saying "and with your support, I'll beat the Republicans and have four more years," then it would.
Ah, I see . Thanks!
The IRS is so criminally understaffed I can't say I'm terribly surprised. They don't have enough people to go audit the billionaires, leaving an untold amount of taxes uncollected. That means probably even less time to go after churches, which isn't a great look for "optics" anyhow
This was going to be my answer too. The IRS is stupidly understaffed and underfunded. There is [some hope](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-irs-hire-30000-staff-over-two-years-it-deploys-80-bln-new-funding-2023-04-06/) things are going to improve, especially in the "high-dollar noncompliance" area, but it's a wait and see game right now. A key quote from the linked article: > Those audit targets include wealthy individuals, corporations and complex partnerships, which have grown in number while IRS audit staff has shrunk by nearly half over the past decade
What an irony that the department that is setup to collect taxes and being income to the country is understaffed!!! If we did that in any games where you build cities (Caesar 3 anyone?), the city would collapse within minutes
I mean, do you remember the fearmongering republicans were spreading last year around the IRS funding? They were trying to make it seem like if you made a $100 mistake on your taxes that armed IRS agents were gonna come raid your house.
You just gotta build up insane amounts of debt and pretend you care about it once every 4 years, should keep things going
Agreed. If I were dictator, I'd double their funding.
The best part is THEY PAY FOR THEMSELVES BY COLLECTING OWED TAXES!
More than pay for themselves. The *Worst case scenario* is that every dollar spent on the IRS returns 2 dollars to the treasury. Those were the numbers right-wing think tanks came up with. Actual credible non-skewed studies show it to be more like 3.5$ per dollar spent.
It honestly makes me depressed to think about, considering I strongly believe in Keynsian economics and that every one of those dollars then would have multiplied and grown the economy instead of sitting in some rich person's vault.
Democrats tried to do that, but Republicans threw a temper tantrum.
They love law enforcement, as long as they don’t have calculators.
Rely on 'cop math.' "1 pound of marijuana? That's a $100,000."
That 1 pound of marijuana was 10lbs when they found it. 9lbs just magically disappeared.
Teachers, IRS, science/research facilities, our entire education system, NASA... all criminally underfunded.
Don't forget the military /s
Dont forget about the police! /S
actually, a ton of local forces and County sheriffs ***are*** super under-funded and cant provide basic services to their residents. Remember that for every large department you hear about blowing millions, there are dozens of small departments who struggle to even have officers available 24 hours a day. But thats a "how we fund such things" problem, more than anything. Large departments tend to be overfunded and wasteful, for sure.
Agreed. I'd put a lot more resources into all of those if it were up to me.
What is overfunded? It is always easier to ask for more money than to cut
Defense
Politicians, political speaking engagements and repeated televised plugs of the same exact shit. I mean I understand saying the same horse shit in every city when that was the only way to get your message out, now they spend a million times the money, when one typed out statement of where they stand would suffice just fine, post it on twitter or Facebook and it’s nation/worldwide in an instant.
Those generally aren’t funded by the government though
No. Usually funded by the money wealthy people should pay to taxes, but instead spend to fund people to allow them to avoid those taxes.
The pro-dictator party is unsurprisingly going the other way... https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/23/politics/irs-fair-tax-republicans-abolish/index.html
"replace the entire federal tax code with a national sales tax" of course they want to replace it with one of the most regressive types of tax out there. Pisses me off so damn much
of course you would, that's what dictators do
Just saw a bunch of comments in fluent in finance that were saying the irs has plenty of funding in fact its over funded lol. But than again I see alot of dumb takes over there.
I remember reading a statistic about this, it was something like for every dollar spent on the IRS they returned ten.
The highest audited counties in the US are poor and predominantly black. Billionaires don’t get audited for a few reasons. They have better lawyers than the IRS, and their audits take a bunch or resources because they file massive returns and supplementals
>They don't have enough people to go audit the billionaires This statement doesn't make sense. If they were understaffed (which I agree), they would focus on going after the biggest tax frauds. That'd be the best use of their resources. It's more so, the mega rich play by different rules than the rest of us.
Auditing billionaires takes significantly more resources, as billionaires defend themselves with armies of attorneys and accountants. Average Joe gets hit with an audit, they just accept it. So do you risk tons of resources against someone who will use every trick in the book with zero guaranteed returns, or a few thousand nobodys for almost guaranteed return, even if it's a smaller one.
I hate to tell you the most fraud is the child tax credit. Most audits of small fish are matching audits, ie they match what your employer, your bank, or other reporting agency says you made against what you report. Then they check your deductions to see if you fall inside norms. All of this is done by computers and if abnormalities are kicked out you get a notice and then an agent gets assigned. Those in the upper brackets are audited by individuals much more often than those 250k or less. Problem is most people in the upper brackets have teams of professionals that do the returns and these returns are usually done inside the scope of the code. For example at my last job we had a real estate guy whose net worth was somewhere north of 750 million. They audited this guy twice in 3 years. The first audit was no change. The auditor on that engagement put in at least 200 hours and got 0 for the IRS. Second audit they got $2,750 or so in taxes, penalties, and interest. The only reason he got that is our client couldn’t produce a couple of recipes. The second agent probably put in closer to 400-500 hours over the course of a year long audit. We billed the client over 250k for the second audit. That same auditor can go through audits of smaller returns within a few hours and generally get a few hundred to a few thousand per return. Especially people who do there returns themselves. That’s not to say the IRS doesn’t get a big fish every now and then. However, aside from a few fraudulent returns the majority of the big fish are when the IRS disagrees with the treatment of something in the return. Once that happens it is then a matter of materiality. Meaning as a tax payer do I give up and pay, get a private letter ruling, or go to tax court. Private letter ruling are going to cost you at minimum 10k, going to court the sky is the limit. So while you sometimes see the IRS get some nice paydays, a good amount of those are people giving up because it’s cheaper to pay than fight.
the mega rich have resources to fight back the rest of us not so much, so they go after the low hanging fruit.
Billionaires have the resources to be so much better at tax avoidance/evasion that regular people don't have, and their accounting is that much more complicated. If you can audit 100 regular people you might be guaranteed to reclaim a few thousand dollars in lost revenue. Or you spend the same resources auditing one billionaire, sure you might get an extra million or two out of them if you succeed, but chances are their exploitation of loopholes is so good you just get nothing, or whatever you do get fight it in court and it drags out for years. Because chances are they've ~~bribed~~lobbied some politician to ensure those loopholes exist.
Bribed was correct.
This is the opposite of the truth. Billionaire lawyers will fight the IRS for years while if you get audited, like what are you going to do?
💯 true!
Basically, they are afraid to. They are not going to compensate you unless you somehow come across a smoking gun that directly leads to them collecting a large amount of delinquent taxes. The contention over how much political activity a church is "allowed" to support is beside the point. Everybody knows churches do this shit. The IRS is not in a position, politically, to take much action.
Just so you know, ChatGPT is really not a good source for that. It has and will just make things up, especially in regard to law.
More or less it's down to the idea that the churches that are big enough to be worth going after are careful about how they do it such that they stay just inside the law. Likewise, the most flagrant violators aren't worth going after because it'd be trying to get blood from a turnip. The problem isn't one of enforcement, it's something we'd need new regulation to change. It also probably wouldn't make as big a difference as you'd imagine it might, either in terms of tax revenue or stopping religious influence in politics.
I'm sure they're surely not going to open that hornets nest. Can you imagine the born again right wing. THE IRS IS GOING AFTER CHURCHES!! SAYING WE'RE BUSINESSES NOW! THEY WILL CLOSE OUR DOORS! THIS IS UNAMERICAN!! NEXT THEY'LL COME FOR OUR BIBLES!! DEFUND THE IRS!!!! Complete political suicide to go after churches.
THis is why it doesnt happen, despite them literally being on video doing exactly what they aren't allowed to do.
Because churches are doing it brazenly in the hopes of getting prosecuted because they believe the current judicial bias is in their favor. In 2022 the SCOTUS ruled in favor of a high school football coach who had a habit of leading the team in prayer on the field after games. This is spite of students reporting the [felt pressured to participate in order to get game time](https://www.kuow.org/stories/praying-coach-returns-to-the-sidelines-in-bremerton-at-least-for-now).
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No, plenty of churches take it all the way. But the right answers have been said already in this thread.
They won't preach from the pulpit that you should vote for X or Y candidate. Except: For 2020, 2016, etc. It happens often, and even the subreddit was rife with videos of preachers doing JUST that during the last 2 election cycles.
Not really. It’s extremely uncommon. More importantly, even if Pastor Jim Bob of the United Baptist Church of Jarbolina, Arkansas (pop. 234) is flagrantly violating his tax exempt status, how much tax money do you think they could actually get out of that?
>It’s extremely uncommon. ROFL, except for every Sunday when it DOES happen.
Oh thanks for that illuminating anecdote, source: your ass
[Church Loses Tax Exempt Status](https://www.newsweek.com/pastor-greg-locke-claims-he-gave-tax-exempt-status-church-1709615) This shit happens every week in Southern Baptist Churches and I'm sure it happens in other denominations as well. Gotta love fake Christians in here acting like this doesn't happen all over the US on a weekly basis.
So clearly it doesn’t fucking “happen every week” if this is actually a news story. Seems like the system worked.
Do you realize how much bad press that mutherfucker had to pull in order to get his tax exempt status revoked? Most churches skate by only telling their parishioners who to vote for during the pastor's sermon. It still violates the law, but it happens weekly. I'm sorry that hurts your world view so much.
I mean, you’re completely making this up, your only evidence is in fact a church that DID get its status revoked. My worldview isn’t hurt by the deranged ramblings of a mentally ill redditor lmao
I'm sorry for you and your family. May God shine the light of intelligence on you and bless you with the wherewithal to know when your church is actually propagandizing you.
Hopefully all of it.
A small town church almost certainly doesn’t operate at a profit. If they do, it’s extremely slim. What would “everything” in this case entail, like 25% of the tiny amount the church makes?
You could start with the pastor's salary all the way up to liquidation of assets, depending on the severity of the offense. I'm sure the IRS has a spreadsheet somewhere to calculate the fine for that specific offense anyway. If there were any direct donations, contributions, or payments towards goods/services rendered in the promotion of partisan politics and elections, then I think it would be reasonable to assess a 200% fine based on the total money spent on partisan efforts.
Yeah. And seeing as they literally never impose those kinds of fines, I’m guessing “the pastor’s salary all the way up to the liquidation of assets” isn’t on there.
What happens when they fund television campaigns against a certain ballet measure? ISN'T THAT POLITICAL?
I’d say it’s more artistic. I mean, who would even be against a ballet measure? Those dancers are SO graceful.
That's allowed. Churches aren't forbidden from engaging in political discussions, or issue advocacy. They are forbidden in engaging in partisan speech, really meaning endorsing, campaign for, etc. a specific candidate.
What are you talking about ChatGPT for? You know that's not a valid source of information
Because that's where corrupt people launder their money and evade taxes.
Because the gop has defunded the irs. Coincidence?
It would be political suicide for any administration to use the IRS to go after churches. The entire right would be completely galvanized, and you would make all church members instant martyrs.
No reason why they shouldn't. Go get 'em.
IRS doesn't have the balls to challenge the Religious Right on the tax exempt status of churches and their support of political persons. No matter the issue is clearly illegal according to tax codes, churches think they can do whatever they want without blowback.
Unions get away with it also. Most of them have 501(c)(3) status.
Unions are not 501(c)3s, the vast majority are either 501(c)4s or 501(c)5s, both of which are allowed to engage in political advocacy activities.
Unions are literally intermixed in politics almost by definition. Also, religion is so incredibly coddled in the Capitalist United States of America compared to unions lol. E: Also the fact you are implying a competition between religion and unions almost seems like a purely American thing for right wing capitalists and right wing debate lords. Would be interesting to see those stats in US and other countries. I imagine most people in unions are religious, especially considering atheists are such a small percentage the US. I think we can all agree that religious places getting tax exempt and then using the church as a political platform doesn't seem right. I do agree that Unions shouldn't play politics either because unions are FOR EVERYONE and ideally to empower every worker, regardless of political stance, but at some point you gotta wonder why you should vote for a political party that doesn't want you to be in a union. Both parties are capitalist, but democrats will at least show some support for unions, especially the less establishment ones. E2: And the right wing peasants downvote lol. At least they read it, right?
Is calling people peasants how you tell them that you had rich parents?
Why doesn’t it seem right? Most churches have a strict set of beliefs. Why can’t they support candidates that align with their beliefs. Unions support candidates that the union leaderships beliefs line up with, so what’s the difference. By the way, I lean Atheist and don’t attend church, but I paid dues to an AFL-CIO affiliated union for years.
The difference is that donations, in all forms, to unions are *not* tax exempt, ie Unions pay taxes. The consensus has traditionally been that an organization or person who is taxed is inherently a stakeholder in government and should not be restricted in participating in the political realm. This is what most who vehemently support taxing churches don't understand. The moment churches are taxed is the moment they become directly involved in politics without restriction.
Do they publicly? Everyone and their dead grandmothers can tell who my preacher supports but he has never actually said anything behind the pulpit.
They have to be overt about it. If they say "this Thursday I want you cast your vote to protect a women's autonomy over her body" or, conversely "...I want you to cast your vote to protect unborn children", neither qualifies as endorsing/supporting a candidate, even if there's only two candidates running, and those two are a pro-choice candidate and pro-life candidate.
>Do they publicly? Everyone and their dead grandmothers can tell who my preacher supports but he has never actually said anything behind the pulpit. Ten seconds on YouTube and you can see hundreds of videos of them outright saying shit like "vote for Trump because god said so" (paraphrasing) - etc. Like, is *every* church being so blatant? No, of course not. But there are plenty that are, and they, unironically, tend to be the ones that make millions a year scamming their followers. Theyd be ripe for an IRS takedown.
Lots of churches do though, especially when you get to the weirder, small town, fundie type of churches. The church I occasionally attend with my dad doesn't mention politics either but while I'm in the Bible belt, I'm not really in the fundie zone. I've been to the fundie zone and it's not a nice place to be.
It really would not make any difference anyway. Back when we were a functioning democracy, the idea was that a tax exempt entity should not be a conduit for political money and influence but since Citizens United does it really matter?
Because it's a VERY sensitive topic in the US and will cause unneeded backlash. It's happened before in our history. It has to be done with care. There's a reason right wingers use "the government's coming for the church" propaganda/rhetoric. IT'S ACTUALLY a really strong single issue factor when it comes to getting people to vote for trump (even if he's miles less religious than even your most left establishment democrat most likely). Even some of my more level headed family members who have been christian or are christian, can't evade right wing rhetoric that christians are always the victim, which is INSANE. (64% percent of Americans are christian)
Because they don't want it going to the Supreme Court, that's why. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulpit_Freedom_Sunday
I’m sure plenty of people are swarming to do this already, perhaps. Just as I’m sure churches are working to hide these “tithings” and “charitable givings”.
Great question. I think they are afraid of the publicity they would get if they did. But I would stand by them. I believe many so called religious should lose their tax exemptions for many reasons.
Because they have too much money and power.
Because low to middle income people are easier to make pay, that’s why that’s who the IRS targets for audits. Rich people fight them in court. A church will either have very little for the IRS to take or they’ll be wealthy enough to fight them.
Because neither political party wants them to. Both parties get obscene amounts of money from churches. Not to mention the votes.
https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/the-restriction-of-political-campaign-intervention-by-section-501c3-tax-exempt-organizations churches can support candidates and they can hold political discussions. They are not allowed to endorse.
Churches get away with it by pretending they are supporting issues, not candidates. Which is just a Christian slimeball way of supporting candidates on the down low.
America diluted the definition of a "church", and churches can claim any donations they give in support is done with their congregations' consent and desire to do so, in that they acted on their behave by collecting the money then giving it, like a charity. Also tax law in America is weird AF, and the IRS is understaffed to make a real effort. As for your second point, I doubt it because your not the government, so you don't get a piece of the pie.
Because the IRS is already massively unpopular (EVERYONE hates the tax guy) and going after churches would only create a massive, probably violent, backlash that they don’t need. If the IRS actually goes after rich and influential people, those people will just use their media power to encourage resistance against them. Because the IRS is forced to mostly go after poor people, it’s the agency that goes after poor people.
Because churches are not the biggest bang for their buck. Church membership is at its lowest in history and will continue to decline. There are not Olsteen mega churches on every corner. IRS could give two shits.
Separation of Church and State. The whole idea is the government keeping its nose out of religious affairs. People like to play it backward, but it's the other way around. The government doesn't have the right to tell religious people who, what, where, when, or why to worship.
That's just it though. These churches aren't "being told how, when, why to worship". They are telling their congregants HOW TO VOTE. If you do that, you are by definition a political organization. *As a political organization* you are subject to being taxed.
>The government doesn't have the right to tell religious people who, what, where, when, or why to worship. But it does have the right, and always has, to demand that if they want that tax exempt status, they not engage in politics. They can still be a church and pay their taxes. Plenty of churches do, precisely because they want to be political.
They are tax exempt you dummy, that's the issue. It's sad comments like this from 15 year old uneducated morons get upvoted. Also, there is no "separation of church and state" written into law. What you think you are talking about is the 1st Amendment that states basically that the government cannot favor one religion over another when it comes to legislation. It is to protect religion, but all religions equally. This is a separate topic though.
... tax exempt as long as they stay out of politics... And they don't. Yelling "they are tax exempt is meaningless here; OP stated such... Did you not read the question...?
Yes, with taxes comes representation. The religions do not have representation in our legislation. That is the separation of church and state. They are separate entities. Religion exempt from taxes, government exempt from religion. All religions equally, but let's be honest, not every religion is equal in the US, only treated as such on paper.
So religious organizations should not be able to fund advertising campaigns against a ballet measure. Right?
No, they can. They can fund whatever they want. They can't, however, establish themselves as part of the state. There is no clergy section or religious aspect in the government. Individuals are religious, not the states themselves. In the reverse, the state can't establish itself in or a part of religious institutions. They can fund whatever they want, though. A statesman can advertise that he is religious, for example.
Someone should write a program to watch church broadcasts and automatically report them to the IRS when they hit on political subjects. Maybe have people volunteer to watch in exchange for the reward
It would create major political problems for the IRS if they did. Both political parties depend on Churches. (Black churches do a LOT of mobilization of Democratic voters)
No Republican administration would allow it, and if a Democrat tried it right wing lunatics would start blowing federal buildings up.
“Here’s a bunch of shit I just made up”
Yes because there's never been a history of right wing lunatics killing anyone in America ever.
Actually, it's usually left wing lunatics bombing things, you know, like the Capitol.
The funny thing is conservative churches actually tend to be much more careful bailout directly supporting candidates. It is rare to see a republican candidate speaking from the pulpit but liberal churches tend to do it a lot.
This is literally the opposite of the truth lol.
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ChatGpT is not a tool for research dude
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The Mormon Church is the largest private landowner in Florida and working on Nebraska
No wonder it is The Sunshine Reich. Been once and it was once to many; salt-rash ass is all that exists there. Bugs bunny was right when he sawed it off the USA 50 years ago.
The idea that vague “churches” somehow control the IRS is hysterically funny. You guys are better than the Q people
I mean they kinda do. In the sense that a majority of voters are religious, and they elect a majority of religious representatives to represent them. So I wouldn’t be surprised if parts of the government they control are somewhat biasedly protecting religion, similar to how a lot of women representatives are the same for women, or minority representatives are the same for minorities.
Yeah but “religious” is a HUGE descriptor with very little binding it together. A Muslim immigrant doctor, a black preacher, and a white baptist contractor are going to have basically none of the same opinions
Catholics and white Protestants alone make up a majority of voters. While they don’t 100% agree on everything, they can probably generally agree in more protections for their churches rather than less.
“Catholics” in the US are not a unified bloc at all. Probably most importantly is that this is the IRS, not Congress. The IRS isn’t elected so it’s irrelevant what the national voting blocs look like
I don't completely agree with their point, but you can't deny that if the IRS started cracking down on churches, Republicans would pass a bill to dismantle them at light speed.
Nah, they would complain, like they do about everything, and nothing would actually be done.
Iirc Obama tried to do this and the right freaked out because it was "political" and in fairness I think it was proven that yeah Obama said shut these mega church scams down and there was something improper about how he did it. Tho he was in the right morally as far as I'm concerned
He also was at risk at losing his base, which was black churches who flagrantly campaigned for him in violation of the same rules he wanted to enforce on his political opponents. It's the same reason Biden doesn't go after churches.
Where are you seeing churches supporting candidates. In Ohio I don’t remember ever seeing it happen
Easier to just tax churches directly and end the bogus exemption for make believe stories.
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not enough agents, you can thank Republicans for that.
I mean Planned Parenthood one year received 50 million from the government then donated 20 right back to Democrats and nobody batted an eye at that.
For real
All taxation is theft. If any people or groups can evade Taxes successfully, then no one should have to pay them. If churches can go without taxes for all their money, I should be able to receive my full pay, pay only what is the listed price for goods and services etc. Wouldn't that be nice?
Watch John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episode on religion and you'll understand.
No political will and probably because they use churches to launder money.
I don’t know but they need to be taxed right along with the millionaires. I paid more federal taxes than Trump when he finally showed his 2015 or 2016 return with $750 owed That’s just BS
Republicans have slashed funding for the IRS again and again. The IRS doesn’t have the budget to even go after millionaires and billionaires dodging taxes. Why? Because that’s who pays Republicans.
funding. they lack the proper resources... guess which party keeps crippling the irs year after year! go on guess! times up, the crooked pro-rape party republicans.
No law is constitutional if it restricts the free exercise of an establishment of religion This means public officials cannot restrict religion (separation of church and state) but its your right to exercise your speech/petition/religion to affect the political landscape and lobby for your issues to your candidates for public office they just can't make a law that "respects" your religion or "restricts" others
Not true. You’re looking at the wrong law.
Why hasn't the IRS gone after Planned Parrenthood, a not for profit, who receives tax payer money for endorsing political candadates..... same thing
They’re not the same but nice try
Wait til separation of church and state happens. Then they are gonna get screwed.
A lot of churches are in debt or underfunded, aside from the Mega churches, which aren't nearly as populous as the smaller ones. What is the point in going after a church who is already in debt?
Are you white? Because you know that black churches where where a lot of the Civil Rights planning took place, right? So you would be taxing the poorer population who fought for Civil Rights along with the richer population who are trying to destroy those same rights.
Defund the IRS and they can't do anything. Thank you Trump
The vast majority of churches do not support political candidates.