Most Recent Posts
Clergy Housing Tax Break Seen As Unconstitutional
His analysis is that the parsonage exclusion violates the Establishment Clause and that the arguments that the Free Exercise Clause mitigates the concern do not stand up. Not every benefit to religious organizations violates the Establishment Clause. The treatment of churches as exempt 501(c)(3) organizations is part of a larger scheme to exempt organizations that can be viewed as serving the public good. Churches are exempt, but so is the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
On the other hand, churches are not required to file Form 990 or apply for exempt status and the IRS has to jump through enough hoops to initiate a church audit that it pretty much doesn’t bother. This relatively hands-off policy recognizes the free exercise clause.
Argument For The Constitutionality Of The Parsonage Exclusion
One of the issues that I have been following since the beginning of my blogging days is the Freedom From Religion Foundation's quixotic seeming quest to have the...
Transactivist Comments On Article About O’Donnabhain Decision
When I asked Toni D'Orsay, Executive Director of the Trans 100 to comment on an article about the O'Donnobhain decision, which recognized gender confirmation surgery as...
President Trump Exaggerates Limits On Clergy Speech At Prayer Breakfast
What is unclear from the President’s statement is what he means by destroying the Johnson amendment. There is a bill in Congress HR 6195 The Free Speech Fairness Act, which is more of a tweak to the Johnson amendment, but arguably addresses the President’s concern and also that of the promoters of Pulpit Freedom Sunday
An Examination Of IRS Startling Argument On Gender Confirmation Surgery
The IRS lost badly in Tax Court. a decision I covered in the very dawn of my blogging career. In a pretty unusual move, the IRS signaled its acquiescence in the decision. Of course, that was during the Obama administration. All in, the Traditional Values Coalition arguably shot itself in the foot by pressuring the IRS to take on this fight. The whole matter along with the fight over DOMA was the inspiration for Reilly’s First Law of Tax Policy – Make tax policy the Switzerland of the culture war.
President Trump has gone on record on trans issues by indicating that Caitlyn Jenner can use whatever bathroom she feels most comfortable within Trump’s properties. So perhaps there will not be another shift with the new administration.
Decision On Clergy Housing Tax Benefit Coming This Summer
So if FFRF wins, this matter becomes a concern for church budgets in 2019. I’m hoping there will be a “Make Our Pastor Whole” movement. My experience with small congregation governance is that generally, the problem is people thinking things should be able to run with them dropping the same amount in the plate that their grandparents did forgetting that grandma baked nine million cookies to sell and grandpa painted the church himself. Maybe this will serve as a wake-up call.
IRS Scandal Daily Coverage: The Final Chapter
Ms. Kabbany’s comment on the series is perhaps indicative of the most unfortunate effect of the TaxProf’s method as she mentions the “long list of blog entries” being a “sight to behold”. That comment is an indication to me that Ms. Kabbany has not actually taken the trouble, as have I, to read all the entries. To her, there are a thousand nails in the IRS coffin. What I see is less than a dozen nails pounded on numerous times and then pried up and pounded on a few more times and a lot of folks using the occasion of the wake to talk about other things.
TaxProf Calls An End To Day By Day IRS Scandal Coverage
It seems that the IRS Scandal even more than usual is something that is viewed through ideological glasses. If you would really like to take a hard look at the core scandal, I would recommend the Senate Finance Committee report. The report is in three parts. It lays out the agreed facts that have been determined from fairly exhaustive investigations and then two narratives, one Republican and one Democrat that can be drawn from those facts. The notion that the Obama administration was directing the IRS to target conservative groups is now something of an article of faith on the right. The Republican narrative relies on a kind of a tone at the top dog whistle to support that belief.
Getting Out Of The Blue Calls From IRS? Just Hang Up
On a special day that happens to be just a couple of weeks before the end of tax season, we would get on the speakerphone and each of us would call a family member of one of the others pretending to be an IRS agent with questions about that persons return. Having the return in front of us strengthened the credibility. It was particularly satisfying to pull the prank on my brother who often used his ATT job to pull jokes on the family. He one time convinced my mother to put a paper bag over the phone while they blew the dust out the lines. Ah, the good old days.
Donald Trump On Getting Mad AND Getting Even – The Twissing of John Lewis
I've decided to create a portmanteau - "Twiss" - a combination of Tweet and Diss. Since twist is already a word, it might not work, but we'll see how it goes. And of...