Retirement thoughts Past Present Future

[Snobdds]

Maybe not illegal but those donations are not to a "charitable cause otherwise supported by the government" and should not be tax deductible. The original reason, as I understand it, that churches (and donations to) were tax exempt was that they did some of the government's work for them by supporting those in need.

My guess is that you will say that guy is needy, but this certainly belongs in the Fleecing of America category.

Non-profits will go away if this moral outrage prevails. A lot of good will go away to own one grifter.

We need strategic thinking here, not broad based knee jerk reactions that do more harm than good...

 

[goeduck]

Non-profits will go away if this moral outrage prevails. A lot of good will go away to own one grifter.

We need strategic thinking here, not broad based knee jerk reactions that do more harm than good...

A lot of "Non-profits" belong in the Fleecing of America category.

 

[Snobdds]

A lot of "Non-profits" belong in the Fleecing of America category.

maybe so, but neither of us are the arbiter of judgement.

We can only hope they get greedy and make mistakes that land them in jail. It does happen.

 

[MossRoad]

Never fails. Buy a little land, build you a nice place in the country with your own airport, and somebody is going to put in a mobile home park across the street. There goes your property value.

It has been 20 something years since I did some work at the hanger, there were 4 aircraft there including a Gulfstream jet. You have to travel fast to do God's work.

View attachment 795137

I used to take care of a televangelist's (not this one) aircraft's (plural). As with all occupations, I suppose some are ok. However, this one was pretty nasty towards everyone at the FBO. So was his family. Completely different when the cameras were on.

 

[riptides]

I used to take care of a televangelist's (not this one) aircraft's (plural). As with all occupations, I suppose some are ok. However, this one was pretty nasty towards everyone at the FBO. So was his family. Completely different when the cameras were on.

Never get nasty with someone who feeds you or works on your equipment.

 

[dmccarty]

Last century, I worked in a gated community that has a mix of condos, small houses, and large houses. A televangelist and his family had multiple houses in the community. Just looked up two of the houses on Zillow and those houses are estimated at $2-3 million today. I don't know if they live there anymore, I assume the televangelist and his wife died along time ago. Kinda surprised the houses are that "cheap" today. Figured they would have been worth more since this guy was one of the big televangelists back in the day.

Quite a few people in the community did not like the televangelist or his family. The would put up posters in the community areas letting residents know what the latest scan the televangelist was running.

There is a pastor, or used to be, in a nearby county that has a huge mansion along a rural road. Pretty obvious where his money is from but people keep giving and that is on them. The house is pretty ugly to be honest, and it was built to be in your face, so people cannot plead ignorance.

Just saw an old parsonage in a fancy part of London that can be rented. It is 3,000 square feet on three levels. The house is centuries old and was renting for some where around $40,000. I think that was a month but I was not pay attention to the terms.

On one trip to Ireland we visited the Bishop's Palace in Waterford which is across the street from Waterford Crystal. The palace is centuries old and quite large, though to be fair, people build bigger "homes" today.

Clergy getting rich off of people is nothing new.

 

[Snobdds]

You didn't read that, did you!

Part V [that's five ] Implications and Conclusions argues that the First Amendment doesn't extend an unlimited tax exemption for the portion of a wildly extravagant 'parsonage' that is beyond any charitable or worship function of a church.

Somehow I missed this...

Well, are you saying the IRS is allowing this fraud to happen? Don't you think this is a slam dunk case for the IRS to win and make an example out of? Why do you think this is allowed to happen.

Also, thanks for letting me know what V means. I was totally befuddled and I can say I learned something today.

 

[California]

Don't you think this is a slam dunk case for the IRS to win and make an example out of? Why do you think this is allowed to happen.

My post above with the photo of the 'parsonage' (#2353) included a link to a Texas nonprofit that has studied this issue.

Trinity Foundation began in 1972 as a religious, charitable and educational non-profit foundation for promoting the public interest in the State of Texas by producing Christ-centered communications projects.

An early skepticism about the way religious programming was bought and sold prompted Trinity to conduct a controversial research project on the audience demographics and ratings ...

In that link, they discuss several court cases that have determined precedents for this. After a brief glance it seems the line between tax-deductible and for-profit has shifted back and forth to emphasize one or the other, over time. Then, the 'Stakeholders' (interested parties) go and influence Congress for legislation in their favor.

Take a look at that link for a more detailed explanation.

 

[California]

And a side note about televangelists getting rich:

Anybody remember Wolfman Jack, who broadcast rock n roll into the US from Mexican radio transmitters that were 5x the broadcast power of US stations? The guy was a legend!

I'm not going to look it up but in an interview he said he saw the huge profits made by radio-evangelists pushing 'prayer cloth' worth a day's wages. So he bought a share in one of those Mexican stations to get rich off those radio evangelists. There's lots more to his story.

First link I found:

** XERB Radio 1090 - Wolfman Jack - Southern California Giant - Los Angeles **

Down the rabbithole! There's a lot more to Wolfman's story.

 

[Snobdds]

And a side note about televangelists getting rich:

Anybody remember Wolfman Jack, who broadcast rock n roll into the US from Mexican radio transmitters that were 5x the broadcast power of US stations? The guy was a legend!

I'm not going to look it up but in an interview he said he saw the huge profits made by radio-evangelists pushing 'prayer cloth' worth a day's wages. So he bought a share in one of those Mexican stations to get rich off those radio evangelists. There's lots more to his story.

First link I found:

** XERB Radio 1090 - Wolfman Jack - Southern California Giant - Los Angeles **

Down the rabbithole! There's a lot more to Wolfman's story.

I beginning to think there is an axe to grind here...why such focus and hate on a group of like 10 people in the US?