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CBS DC: IRS Getting Pressured To Crack Down On Televangelists Following John Oliver’s Segment


Jumbo

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http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/08/20/irs-televangelists-john-oliver/

 

 

The IRS is getting pressured to begin cracking down on televangelists following a John Oliver segment on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight.”

 

Oliver blasted televangelists this past Sunday for what he called “seed faith,” where they tell donors they will reap the rewards by giving money to them.

 

“They preach something called the prosperity gospel which argues that wealth is a sign of God’s favor and donations will resulticon1.png in wealth coming back to you. That idea sometimes takes the form of seed faith – the notion that donations are seeds that you will one day get to harvest,” Oliver said in the segment.

 

He continued, “The argument is ‘sow your money into the ground, you will reap returns multiple times over,’ except as an investment you’d be bettericon1.png off burying your money in the actual ground because at least that way there’s a chance your dog may dig it up and give it back to you one day.”

People have donated millions to televangelists through the “prosperity gospel,” believing by giving money, God will helpicon1.png them.

 

“They keep trying to send more money, more money, more money so they can get healed,” Trinity Foundation president Ole Anthony, whose group investigates religious fraud, told CBS News.

 

Anthony explained to CBS News that televangelists are able to receive millions because the IRS has turned a “blind eye” to their tax-exempt churches.

 

“A few years ago, the IRS named Scientology a church. Since that happened, anybody can call themselves a church,” Anthony said.

 

CBS News reports the IRS only conducted three church audits from 2013 to 2014 after suspending them completely from 2009 to 2013.

 

 

 

 <more at link>

 

He started his own church to help make the point: Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption  :lol: 

 

I've seen a few episodes of his show over the last couple months and he's really pretty good---more in John's vein of approach to sociopolitical targets, often with just as interesting and significant but less well-known stories and subjects, and with Oliver's style of delivery.

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I live(d) in Regent Park subdivision in Fort Mill, SC where the former palace of Jim and Tammy Fay Baker used to reside. There are still remnants of their old empire in the neighborhood. There is a tower that is about 20 floors high that was never completed and dilapidated and the residents have been in a court battle with Morningside church to have it taken down.  Morningside bought all the Baker's church property. It's been in the court system for ever and the church claims they want to renovate it, except they never do.

 

Jim and Tammy Fay dreamed of a "Dollywood" type of place where they would continue to reap in millions of dollars to people who really didn't have a pot to piss in.  These "churches" prey on the sick, poor and desperate and I'd love the government to reverse their "non-profit" status as it's all just bull**** anyway.

 

I'm sorry, but I think all televangelists are frauds.  There was an article in the Charlotte Observer that showed one CEO of one of the churches that has a $5 million a year salary for a "non-profit."  People get duped sending these frauds money.  Please people, if you want to give money to a church, find a local church in your area to give to.  Don't get sucked in by empty promises and fraudulent telecasts. 

 

Televangelist are only in it for one thing: Money, YOUR money.

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They've been robbing poor and disadvantaged people in need of help for decades. Truly some of the most despicable people on Earth.

 

Similar to what John Oliver exposed on that segment, the magician James Randi tried to expose several "faith healers" as well who are basically cut from the same cloth. One of them Peter Popoff is especially bad. He got completely exposed by Randi as a fraud. But he resurfaced a few years later, targeting a black audience through programming on BET. And he's still putting out infomercials and likely robbing people of money.

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They're scumbags, but if you're stupid enough to believe that crap they sell then you deserve to get ripped off.

 

They targeted disadvantaged people who are not very well educated.

 

It's kind of like the people from India who call US households pretending to be from the IRS and demanding money. Most of their victims are old people because they are easy targets. In situations like that you can't entirely blame old people who may not have access to the internet or modes of fact checking to find out that they are being scammed.

 

There are vulnerabilities in all social groups and we need laws to essentially protect people from being ripped off by scammers (we already have many such laws). Televangelists and faith healers are especially worse because they use religion, which is sacred to most people and exploit it to their own benefit.

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I'll just toss out a counter argument, here.

I really don't want the government to be making decisions on which religions are real religions, and which ones don't count.

I want freedom of religion, like all civil rights, to be interpreted as broadly as we safely can.

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You'd think God would look out for his believers.

 

**** 'em, amiright?

 

~Bang

God acts in many ways and by many people. Maybe this is one of those ways?

 

I can't stand watching these folks bilk the naive. This is a huge problem within the Pentecostal community.

Isn't this why Protestants rebelled from the Roman Catholic Church?

My religion history is waaaay foggy but wasn't that something, somewhere?

There were 95 reasons initially. One of them was the sale of indulgences.

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Nobody ever did a better parody of these douchebags than the late great Sam Kinnison....probably because he came from a family of them.

 

Your moderator-directed assignment, O Erudite One: go post some Kinnison in the random humor (or whatever that stupid title I gave it was) thread when you get a chance.   :D

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I'll just toss out a counter argument, here.

I really don't want the government to be making decisions on which religions are real religions, and which ones don't count.

I want freedom of religion, like all civil rights, to be interpreted as broadly as we safely can.

 

 

Keep the definition loose, and tax them all.

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Does this mean the random humor thread is exempt from shouted profanity restrictions?

  

 

Serious answer:

 

As with other related occurrences in this forum, there's leeway but the idea is to not push it. 

 

It's known there is leeway in here...rules 5, 12, and 13 are given flexibility in particular...some abuse it at various times. Karma is karma on that stuff. My only comment is the more over the top, or lengthy the rule-crossing content is (like a music/comedy vid that's 4 minutes of rule violations) and the more it looks like it's a habit of the poster, the more likely there will be an issue with moderation at some point.  :ph34r:

 

Like I always says---if ya wanna gamble, ya roll dem bones and takes your chances.  :D

 

So far, the streams of teenage male sex talk in RTT :lol:, the occasional butt-raping comments (interesting sentence to type), and a few of the music vids over time are the most common pushers of said envelope.

 

At least this would be my take, if that's helpful to anyone---not suggesting anyone stop any of what they're doing until it actually happens that you're nailed. With long time regs that aren't problem children, I think the mod edit and a warning would be most likely if it's not too bad a transgression. All the mods (I think lol) want all the regs (which is what we are too of course) to feel as home on ES as possible. 

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I saw the segment. I've known for a while that televangelists are scammers, but I hadn't realized the depth of depravity of some of them. These people are garbage. I'd really, really like to see the IRS crack down on scammers like this. The thought that churches should have a tax free blanket thrown over them under all circumstances is also asinine. It really needs to change.

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I considered answering the question with "depends on how funny the mods think it is".

Hmm, you think Jumbo would find the use of Penn Jillette saying "Shut. The ****. Up!" funny? So many times it would come in handy.

 

Mine would have been shorter.

Not the first time you've said that!
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