[This is another unpublished post from last fall. Please enjoy, even though it is not timely anymore.]
The LDS Church mobilized in favor of California’s Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that bans gay marriage. Mormons donated $19 million to the cause — nearly four out of five dollars raised. [The initiative passed.]
…..
We are seeking to strip the Mormon church of its status as a religious organization. According to IRS law, “no organization, including a church, may qualify for IRC section 501(c)(3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation (commonly known as lobbying).”Please join our efforts and show the world that gay people — and their friends and families — know how to hit back. Sign this petition to support the legal effort to strip the Mormon Church of its tax-exempt status.
This analysis is an epic fail because its author had a brain fart when trying to decipher the meaning of a few basic English words. They are:
1. substantial,
2. legislation,
3. lobbying, and
4. its
Substantial means relatively significant or fairly large. The LDS Church is a $100,000,000,000 organization. The $19,000,000 donated to prop 8 is like pocket change to the Mormons.
Likewise, the church has over 13,000,000 members. Out of that number, as many as a few thousand might have participated as leaders in the prop 8 campaign (and that would be a generously high estimate). Even 5,000 people out of 13,000,000 is not “substantial”.
Neither the number of LDS Church members nor the amount of donations from LDS Church members could be called substantial. And as definition #4 makes clear, these numbers (both the money and the people) are not subject to the 501(c)(3) definition because only “its” (the Church’s) activities are relevant, not the activities of private citizens who happen to be Mormon.
Legislation is law enacted by a legislative body, like a statute. Californians amended their constitution (not a statute) via a ballot measure, so that doesn’t count as legislation. They did it themselves without a governing body acting as a middle man.
Lobbying is activity designed to influence a legislator to favor or oppose a piece of legislation. As we’ve discussed already, those voters whom LDS Church members contacted about Proposition Eight were not legislators, but citizens.
Its refers to a Church that enjoys IRC 501(c)(3) status, as in “a substantial part of its activities…”
The LDS Church, as far as I know, did not donate a single dollar to the prop-8 initiative. It is my impression that in the various congregations (wards) in California, a member of the congregation was asked to coordinate prop-8 efforts for the unit. If this is true, this would involve the church-qua-church in the prop-8 campaign, but even if there were two or three prop-8 leaders out of a congregation of 300 to 1000 people, such involvement would not be substantial.
The next time the guy who wrote that article wants to interpret US tax law, he is welcome to borrow my law dictionary. Or, actually, since his problems were with basic words, I would be glad to lend him the Merriam-Websters dictionary I used when I was in 8th grade.
The LDS Church, as far as I know, did not donate a single dollar to the prop-8 initiative.
I think they’ve come out and admitted otherwise now, but it’s certainly not a lot of money.
I wonder if you would still write this post if you took a few more days to think things over. Your anger is understandable, but your thinking is a little off. For example, you may be on solid ground legally, but in the broader public arena I’m not sure most people see a difference between what a legislature does and what Californians do with their ballot initiatives. Also, did you factor in an approximate cost of the church airing all those conservative political commentators on its Bonneville stations?
Actually, the church truly didn’t donate a single dollar. Every donation by the church was made in in kind donations. Here is an official church statement on the matter:
http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/media-reports-on-proposition-8-filing-uninformed
Any person who thinks the church should be stripped of its tax exempt status fails to realize what they are asking for. If they don’t like that the church donated, think how much more they would be able to donate and get involved without their tax exempt status!
It a very small amount indeed. They never hid that they donated money. They just did not say how much they donated. They donated $189,000, which constituted only 1/2 or 1% of total donations for Prop 8.
The piece in the newsroom site of the church lays it out pretty clearly.
http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/church-clarifies-proposition-8-filing-corrects-erroneous-news-reports
There was not “admitting errors” or “conceiling truth”. The fact is the church donated money at different periods of time, which requires certain paperwork to be filed. Each time the church did this, all in accordance to the law. By the end of all the filing periods, the church spent a total of $189,903.58.
I believe this is like so many other attacks on the church, baseless and non-damaging. Here is a link to the press release given concerning the Big Love episode and publicity in general concerning the church.
http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-publicity-dilemma
Also, considering the substantial amount of humanitarian aid the church donates world wide, I think any rational person would think twice about wanting to strip the church of tax exempt status and frustrate its even more substantial work of blessing people–and not just Mormons, around the world.
yeah, i thought it over for a while. since about november.
i’m not angry.
that was the singular point of this post: to show that i’m on solid ground legally.
that is a knowledge gap, which would be something to take up with america’s school teachers, not me.
no. bonneville (and other church-owned businesses) are run as separate entities. there is no commingling of “church” funds and “radio station” funds.
Well, since the author was trying to rally folks around legal action…
LEAVE TGHEM ALONE..NOT A MORMON BUT U KNOW HOW MUCH GOOD THEY DO IN THE WORLD.
LOET THEM HAVE AN OPINION AND MOVE ON
U LAME ASS NEGATIVE SPREADING LOSERS.
You state your case well, and your interpretation is sound.
However, the counterpoint to this argument is this:
“Substantial” does not mean “majority”. While only a small percentage of the church’s total dollars went to this initiative, I believe most people would consider $19,000,000 ‘substantial’ in the arena in which it was spent.
There is certainly an argument for the church losing its tax exempt status over these activities. Again, while only a few church members may have done the actual work, it is clear that the church’s intentions were to influence public policy. It is “intent” that guided the making of IRC 501C.
Further, you defined “legislation” wrong. You aren’t a lawyer, that’s clear. Legislation is the making of laws. It isn’t relegated to the ‘legislative’ branch just because the words are similar. Legislation is the making of laws…whether it happens in the courts, by the president, the congress or the people. And, yes, you can lobby any of those groups.
The church sought to influence that legislation…and it did influence that legislation.
There is a case to remove their tax exempt status. I don’t know if it would win, but it isn’t as open and shut as you originally stated.
And yet we are left with the plain language of the statute to deal with first.
You couldn’t possibly be a lawyer either, because a lawyer would be able to understand how the word “its” modifies a sentence. I am not a tax lawyer, so I was not familiar with the minutiae of IRC decisions interpreting and expanding on the term, “legislation.”
I agree that substantial does not mean majority. That is not the point. Look at the phrase that is governing our entire discussion here: “a substantial part of its activities.” The use of “its” means we do not look to how substantial the organization’s lobbying activities are in “the arena in which [money] was spent.” Rather, because the code says “its,” we must look to how substantial the organization’s lobbying activities are in relation to other activities of the organization.
That is why I said,
This analysis seems to be vindicated by I.R.C. sec. 501(h).