Churches are granted privilege under tax law. Most
significantly, due to their status as 501(c)(3), they are federally tax exempt.
Also, all 50 states exclude them from the property tax rolls. Across all tax
breaks, churches in America realize $71 billion in savings according to a study
conducted by the Council for Secular Humanism and the University of Tampa.
In order to maintain these breaks, the rules are
pretty simple: keep your nose clean in the world of politics. Churches are
allowed to involve themselves in matters of public policy without it being
deemed lobbying -- and incurring the wrath of the IRS -- if their actions are
kept within a certain set of parameters. They can conduct educational meetings,
prepare and distribute educational materials, and pursue public policy in an
entirely educational matter. What they can’t do is contact or urge the public
to contact legislators in an effort to suggest, promote and oppose legislation
or intervene in a political campaign and dictate to their followers who should
be the winner or loser.
Most churches do a fantastic job of staying within
the boundaries of the tax code while others tread a fine line between educating
and lobbying. But, as we’ve seen in recent years, more and more churches are
breaking the law with vigor and becoming fully involved in both policy and
politics.
Take, for example, what happened on New Year’s Day
when Chicago's Cardinal Francis George and his auxiliary bishops issued a
letter to their churches urging them to oppose the gay marriage bill that is up
for vote in the Illinois legislature. Catholic Churches throughout the Diocese
of Chicago issued the letter as a supplement to their church bulletins or
emailed a copy to their parishioners.
Although brazen – and illegal – the Diocese’s
actions are nowhere near as cocksure as the campaign called Pulpit Freedom
Sunday. On one Sunday during the fall of every year since 2008, this movement
has hit churches across the United States. What started as just 84 churches grew
to 539 in 2011 to 1,586 in 2012 (a list of participants can be found at http://tinyurl.com/PoliticalChurches).
Participating churches protest the limitations imposed upon them by the federal
government by openly preaching about candidates and elections and what
Scripture says about those currently engaged in an electoral campaign. They say
it’s their way of using God’s word – and their freedom of speech – to tell
their flock whom they should vote for. Many of these pastors even record their
sermon and send it to the IRS to antagonize and make their claim that federal laws
cannot contain them.
The IRS has attended to most religious lawbreaking
with a hands-off approach. In 2004 it created the Political Activities
Compliance Initiative (PACI) which investigated claims of political preaching
by churches during the 2004, 2006, and 2008 election cycles. After busting 80
churches and slapping them on the wrists with nothing more than a stern
warning, this enforcement endeavor faded into the sunset and saw no
investigations or hearings during or following the 2010 elections; nor has the
IRS investigated recent breaches, even those of the pastors who self-reported
their participation in Pulpit Freedom Sunday.
The IRS’s reasons for allowing non-compliances are
two-fold. For starters, sudden enforcement can be perceived to show support for
a political party (something the apolitical IRS is keenly afraid of). Secondly,
even with declining attendance, Americans still care deeply about their places
of worship and, because of that tax, enforcement would be suicide for certain
politicians and bureaucrats.
Regardless, this fear of repercussions has to stop. The IRS needs to
step up to the plate and make non-compliant churches become complaint,
especially since the agency relishes penalizing individual citizens for far
lighter transgressions.
Simply put, churches can’t have their cake and eat it, too. They can’t
claim separation of church and state and then demand that their members engage
the state in very specific ways. Nor can they claim an unabated freedom of
speech and an ability to participate in affairs of policy while simultaneously not wanting to make the sacrifices (taxes)
that other organizations and individuals must to be afforded the that ability.
If they act up, they should pay up --- after all, churches are organizations
that pride themselves on living by the rules (the Ten Commandments, God’s laws,
et al), so it only makes sense that they behave accordingly within the rules
that grant them special favor.
Gasport
resident Bob Confer also writes for the New American at TheNewAmerican.com.
Follow him on Twitter @bobconfer
This column originally appeared in the 14 January 2013 Lockport Union Sun & Journal
This column originally appeared in the 14 January 2013 Lockport Union Sun & Journal
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