In my interview with Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein, I only asked her one tax question that was not covered in the Green Party Platform. The question concerned the parsonage exclusion, Code Section 107. Code Section 107 allows a “minister of the gospel” to exclude from income amounts received as a housing allowance, provided the amount is spent on housing. There is no dollar limit to the amount that can be excluded. It is most commonly a modest benefit, but televangelists and mega-church ministers can exclude hundreds of thousands of dollars. Putting aside perceived abuse of the benefit, there are people who believe that the benefit violates the First Amendment.
I have written quite a bit about the parsonage exclusion and have had several guest posts from people with a variety of views on the issue. Given the opportunity to interview a candidate for President and failing to ask her about the parsonage exclusion would have risked forfeiting half my fan base, in particular my most reliable commenter, Rober Baty, retired IRS appeals officer and bane of the basketball ministers. I just had to do it. I have to say I was very impressed by her answer. I specifically asked Dr. Stein about the current suit by the Freedom From Religion Foundation challenging the exclusion. The Justice Department will defend the constitutionality of a statute except in the rare circumstance in which the administration determines that the constitutionality of the statute is indefensible. That is what happened to the Defense of Marriage Act. I asked Dr. Stein if she would consider ordering the Justice Department to give Code Section 107 the same treatment they gave DOMA.
I have to say I was very impressed by her answer. It was pretty apparent that the issue was new to her so she would not give a certain answer without studying it. That is understandable. She then went on to say that it did appear inappropriate to give special favors to church employees. Ask a presidential candidate a question that she did not prepare for and get a principled answer. You won’t see that on television, but you can see it here
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Originally published on Forbes.com Oct 9th, 2012