Monday, November 05, 2012

IRS admits churches can speak on politics

Liberal groups have been intimidating churches for decades, sending letters claiming any church that allows political speech will lose their tax-exempt status - ACLU, Barry Lynn's American United for Separation of Church and State and PFAW. But they are wrong. No church has ever lost its tax-exempt status for political speech. And now the IRS is blowing the whistle on the anti-church bunch.

CNS News

… The left has cried wolf far too many times. No one will come running. Especially not the IRS.

That’s because churches, unlike other nonprofit organizations, don’t need a letter of tax exemption from the Internal Revenue Service. Churches are constitutionally tax-exempt simply by virtue of existence. It’s automatic. The only way the IRS could revoke a church’s tax-exempt status would be to disband the church, which, obviously, the government has no authority to do. It’s simple. Pastors, if you get a letter from the ACLU, PFAW or AU, I suggest a singular use for it: bird-cage liner.

Keeping all this in mind, something I’ve long expected has finally occurred. A little over a week ago, the IRS ran up the white flag. [The Blaze] That bureaucratic bully we all love to hate announced that, for the indefinite future, it is “holding any potential church audits in abeyance,” for violating its arbitrary “no politicking” rule.

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