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Posted on 07/29/2014 8:29:52 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Internal Revenue Service has reached a lawsuit settlement agreement with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, agreeing to investigate churches that violate a federal law that activist groups often cite in an attempt to silence them by threatening their tax-exempt status.
"This is a victory, and we're pleased with this development in which the IRS has proved to our satisfaction that it now has in place a protocol to enforce its own anti-electioneering provisions," FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said in a statement last week, following which the Alliance Defending Freedom asked the IRS to release all documents related to it.
The lawsuit, Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Koskinen, accused the IRS of failing to investigate churches the way the atheist group would like. Despite the agreement, only a court has the jurisdiction to close down the case.
Gaylor added: "Of course, we have the complication of a moratorium currently in place on any IRS investigations of any tax-exempt entities, church or otherwise, due to the congressional probe of the IRS. FFRF could refile the suit if anti-electioneering provisions are not enforced in the future against rogue political churches."
The FFRF release says the ADF annual "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" event promotes violation of the Johnson Amendment, which authorizes the IRS to regulate sermons and requires churches to give up their constitutionally protected freedom of speech in order to retain their tax-exempt status.
The ADF called the IRS-FFRF agreement yet another act of secrecy by the tax agency.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianpost.com ...
A better victory would be to eliminate the income tax.
What’s this? More sue and settle?
The Atheist Group is really a Communist Group
Freedom From Religion Foundation = Terrorist Organization like SPLC
/Naught!
Satan’s power in the world continues to grow.
I hope conservative Christians are prepared to challenge Democrat candidates who appear in front of Black AME church congregations. And, what about Jeremiah Wright’s church????
This is actually a good move. The federal law is so blatantly unconstitutional, no suit has ever been filed. So please, go ahead and try. Even if we lose (in these dawns anything can happen), at least we know to start going underground with a clear understanding that America is gone.
Atheists claim to believe in “nothing”, but when they join together they believe in “something”, and that “something” is the destruction of Christianity. Therefore, “atheist” groups need to be criminalized as the Bolshevists and pseudo-Islamists they are.
and they will be starting with Rev. Wright’s church...sure, when pigs fly.
How is it unconstitutional? There is no "right" to being tax-exempt.
When an organization gets tax-exempt status it agrees to not electioneer (although, for whatever reason, religious bodies are opted-in to that status automatically).
This can be easily solved by churches & others renouncing non-profit status and/or starting a PAC (or similar). A small number of conservative churches have, in fact, renounced their tax exempt status for this very reason.
With the shekels come the shackles, like it or not.
I think that would be, ultimately, a bad idea; as terrible as a progressive income tax is can you imagine a progressive sales tax? where the rate you pay is tied to your income level? We have the technology to do this computationally, say a nice little chip embedded in the right hand…
Far better would be a constitutional amendment prohibiting the federal government, the states, or subdivisions of either from applying varying rates on any income-tax that they have, with a cap at [say] 10%.
Yes, this would allow Fed, State, County, and City to all have a 10% tax — but there's no reason to expect states w/o an income-tax to create an income-tax because constitutional limits were imposed on them.
I agree with you. The tax break is so important to the hierarchy of the churches that the truth is no longer preached in almost all churches. I go to one where the truth still reigns.
If there have to be taxes there should be no tax exempt status for churches, PACs, Charities or tax deductable donations of any kind. A flat tax on income ONLY should be in place.
CC
uh oh ... Black Churches take note. You are about to lose your tax exempt status if this measure is applied equally.
I hope so too. The most politically active churches are black and Democrat, across the board.
Will this include Trinity Lutheran?
How about all those churches Eric Holder tutored to electioneer?
RE: Will this include Trinity Lutheran?
What’s so special about this specific church?
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