DrTdaxp

Here is a church that may lose its tax-exempt status because it is espousing political viewpoints…

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/07/antiwar.sermon.ap/…

I’m trying to figure out how every Baptist church in the nation isn’t now paying taxes after the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Dan, please link if blogspirit won’t play nice.

tdaxp’s Comment: Thank you Aaron for the blog post. It’s great to have you back as a guest blogger!

That said, the article doesn’t link to any details on the speech. Does the IRS have a transcript, etc? We do know that the church has a history of breaking campaign laws

The IRS has revoked a church’s charitable designation at least once.

A church in Binghamton, New York, lost its status after running advertisements against Bill Clinton‘s candidacy before the 1992 presidential election.

And that the church chose to escalate the situation

Marcus Owens, the church’s tax attorney and a former head of the IRS tax-exempt section, said the agency offered to drop the proceedings if the church admitted wrongdoing. The church declined the offer, he said.

To repeat, I don’t know the details of the case. Churches have great freedom to discuss issues that concern them, and the IRS’s decision would only make sense if the church stepped beyond that to politically endorse a particular candidate.

Any opinions from the practicing lawyers in tdaxp‘s audience?

PS: Want something truly weird? How about an online statistical clearinghouse shaking down blogs?