Sauce for the Liberal goose...

From the Los Angeles Times...

The Internal Revenue Service has told a prominent Pasadena church that it has ended its lengthy investigation into a 2004 antiwar sermon, church leaders said Sunday.

But the agency wrote in its letter to All Saints Episcopal Church that officials still considered the sermon to have been illegal, prompting the church to seek clarification, a corrected record and an apology from the IRS, the church's rector told standing-room-only crowds of parishioners at Sunday's services....

Although the church no longer faces the imminent loss of its tax-exempt status, All Saints has "no more guidance about the IRS rules now than when we started this process," the rector said. He said the church would continue its struggle with the IRS, which he said so far had cost the 3,500-member congregation about $200,000.

The LA Times and almost all of the MSM have conveniently omitted a very salient part of this story...Landmark Church. In 1992 the church, then called Church at Pierce Creek, in Binghamton, N.Y., placed an ad in the Mew York Times criticizing then President Bill Clinton. The IRS subsequently revoked the church's tax-exempt status. Well, that's what the MSM and their Liberal co-horts have been telling us. In truth, the church never lost their tax-exempt status, but it was used to intimidate Conservative churches into not speaking out on any issues that might touch politics. The late Jerry Falwell explains...

About this time each election year, AU sends what I term a "fright letter" to thousands of conservative evangelical pastors telling them – quite incorrectly – that any use of voter guides, political discourse or other such activity could result in a loss of tax-exempt status for their churches.

However, no such letter is sent to African-American churches or to liberal mainline denominational churches. Traditionally, the Democratic candidates speak in many African-American churches during their presidential campaigns.

He then quotes and article by Mat Staver, general counsel and president of the Orlando, Fla.-based Liberty Counsel...

On May 12, 2000, the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sided with the IRS' decision to revoke a tax-exempt letter ruling from the Church at Pierce Creek located in Binghamton, N.Y. However, the court ruling shows that the IRS has very little authority over churches. The ruling underscores the fact that churches do not need to fear the loss of their tax-exempt status.

On Nov. 20, 1992, the IRS notified the church that it intended to conduct an inquiry as to whether the church was operating as a tax-exempt organization. After negotiations failed, the IRS revoked the church's tax-exempt letter ruling and the church filed suit.

The court pointed out that under the Internal Revenue Code, churches are the only institutions that are not required to apply for tax-exempt status. Churches, by their very nature, are considered tax-exempt. While churches may ask the IRS for an advance letter ruling, churches are not required to do so. If a church does not seek a letter ruling, a donor's contributions are still tax deductible. In the event of an audit, the donor must prove that the church is operating like a tax-exempt organization and following the requirements of IRS Code 501(c)(3), which includes a prohibition on endorsing or opposing a candidate for political office. If a letter ruling is in place, the donor simply points to the letter ruling on file with the IRS.

The Church at Pierce Creek had applied for and received a letter ruling. The IRS simply revoked the letter ruling and the church sued to get it back. The court noted that "because of the unique treatment churches receive under the Internal Revenue Code, the impact of the revocation is likely to be more symbolic than substantial."

Indeed, the tax-exempt letter revocation is only symbolic and not substantive. During the oral argument, counsel for the IRS confirmed that if the church chose not to intervene in future political campaigns, it may hold itself out as a 501(c)(3) organization and receive all of the benefits of that status. The court wrote: "All that will have been lost is the advance assurance of deductibility in the event a donor should be audited."

The court also pointed out that revocation of the letter ruling does not make the church liable for the payment of taxes. As the IRS conceded during oral argument, "the revocation of the exemption does not convert bona fide donations into income taxable to the church." The court also noted that it knew of no authority "to prevent the church from reapplying for a prospective determination of its tax-exempt status and regaining the advance assurance of deductibility – provided, of course, that it renounces future involvement in political campaigns."

So the scam that the IRS has been perpetrating of Conservative churches, frightening them into thinking they'll be forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes, is now biting at Liberal churches, who had before been ignored as potential victims of the scam.

The MSM is also ignoring the actions of William Murray, son of the late Madeline Murray O'Hare, the former Atheist who was pivotal in removing prayer from government schools. Murray became a Christian some time back, and O'Hare ceased being an Atheist once she died, and learned a lesson we wish no one would have to learn in that manner.

Murray is now chairman of the Religious Freedom Action Coalition and the Religious Freedom Coalition. Seeing hypocrisy in the IRS's handling of church, he launched an effort to expose ALL churches using their resources for political purposes, knowing that the vast majority would be Liberal churches. He launched the now closed sites http://RatOutAChurch.org and http://BigBrotherChurchWatch.org.  On Archive.org's archive of RatOutAChurch.org they explain their purpose...

Our immediate purpose is to fight back against vicious left-wing attempts to silence conservative, Bible believing pastors. Every election year, liberal groups have a field day intimidating and harassing conservative pastors into silence, while liberal pastors bring in their favorite politicians and shamelessly campaign for them with impunity. This unequal treatment needs to stop! We intend to make some liberal pastors, who think they can endorse candidates from their pulpits in perfect safety, start to feel the heat conservative Bible believing pastors do. How? We are actively recruiting volunteers to attend services of churches known to have liberal leanings and report to us anything said from the pulpit that may be construed as "endorsement" of a candidate. We intend to file complaints with the IRS against these churches that overtly endorse candidates or who use "code words" to tell congregations to vote for a specific party.

Ultimately he and the organization wanted to end IRS persecution of Conservative churches by forcing them to apply the same rules to all churches. It seems he underestimated the IRS's gall in blatantly using a double-standard a mile wide.

It seems All Saints is being somewhat naive in demanding the IRS back down, since they were never in danger of anything in the first place, and are risking the exposure of the IRS scam that has kept Conservative churches quiet all these years. But then what are Liberals if not naive.

Posted by Danny Carlton at September 24, 2007 7:53 AM