IRS TELLS MINISTRY: YOU CAN'T TALK ABOUT THAT

[CG6468]

IRS TELLS MINISTRY: YOU CAN'T TALK ABOUT THAT
Hear federal agent say 'You have to know your boundaries'
Published: 2 days ago
  BOB UNRUH
 
An audio recording captures an Internal Revenue Service agent stumbling and hesitating her way through a telephone call in which she tells a leader of a pro-life group that her organization must keep its religious beliefs to itself.

The Alliance Defending Freedom said the group, Pro-Life Revolution, did not get its tax-exempt status until last week – nearly two and a half years after starting the process.

In the recorded conversation, IRS agent Sherry Wan tells Ania Joseph: “You cannot, you know, use your religious belief to tell other people you don’t have a belief, so I don’t believe you need the right to do this, start confrontation, protesting, uh, prot, uh, protest. … You don’t apply for tax exemption.”

ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley said the IRS “is a tax collector; it shouldn’t be allowed to be the speech and belief police.”

“The current scandal isn’t new but has merely exposed the abuse of power that characterizes this agency and threatens our fundamental freedoms,” he said.

Pro-Life Revolution, headquartered in Texas, said it operates for religious, educational and charitable purposes.

It applied for tax-exempt status in January 2011. Four months later, it received a letter from the IRS demanding that officers assure the federal government “that the information you distribute or present to the public are (sic) NOT representing biased and unsupported opinions; [and] that the information presented or distributed are (sic) with sufficiently full and fair exposition of the pertinent facts as to permit an individual or the public to form an independent opinion or conclusion.”

The IRS said that in general, “prolife or abortion is a matter of public concern and there are different opinions on this issue.”

“An organization may advocate the adoption of objective (sic) that are controversial. However, it’s (sic) activities may serve educational purpose (sic) if the activities are nevertheless designed to increase the knowledge and understanding of the public on its viewpoint,” the IRS said.

The letter, also from Wan, said, “From the provisions in Article II, item 2.3 of your bylaws, and from the information presented in your website, it appears that some of your activities, conducted or plan to conduct, may be neither educational nor charitable in nature no matter how sincere of (sic) your religious belief or how important of (sic) your viewpoint.”

IRS: Don't you dare do or say that. Don't even think about it.

[cmypay]

Grammar check, she should use it!

As far as what she is trying to say, it almost sounds like she would love to refuse them tax exempt status because they hold religious beliefs