In the appeal of IRS Director Martin’s May decision, Christians Engaged Counsel Lea Patterson of the First Liberty Institute, a Plano, Texas-based public interest law firm that specializes in religious freedom litigation, argued three points against the initial finding by the IRS executive.
“By finding that Christians Engaged does not meet the operational test, Director Martin errs in three ways:
1) he invents a nonexistent requirement that exempt organizations be neutral on public policy issues;
2) he incorrectly concludes that Christians Engaged primarily serves private, nonexempt purposes rather than public, exempt purposes because he thinks its beliefs overlap with the Republican Party’s policy positions; and
3) he violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech, and Free Exercise, and Establishment clauses by engaging in both viewpoint discrimination and religious discrimination,”
“Stephen K. Martin, director of exempt organization rulings and agreements.”
This guy should be fired. He is another version of Lois Lerner.
End the IRS.
But yet they gave tax exempt status to the satanic churches!
Ever want to read about an interesting battle, read about Scientology’s battle with the IRS for tax exempt status. It got really dirty.
Scientology targeted IRS employees
to recruit for members. Then they started an internal IRS whistle-blower organization.
Then they went after the people at the IRS that were against them, harassing in every way possible. This included identifying real estate owned by the IRS employee opponents and filing complaints of building code violations against them.
The IRS finally cried “Uncle” and gave Scientology church status to stop the harassment.