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Everything Is Going Down, But The Word Of God……Many have felt the the Reality show “Preachers of LA” is hurting th church. To be honest I still personally have mixed reviews. I should be in that show next season due my life work of exposing the ills of the church. Additionally, I have done stories in the past on Noel Jones and the alleged affair with LisaRaye and the alleged baby by Stacy Francis that is named after him, years back I did. story on the rumored affair between Ron Gibson and Paula White, I wrote several pieces on Deitrick Haddon and his out of wedlock child (bastard), divorce, and his exposing hi ex-wife’s alleged affair with Isaac Carree, plus I did a profile piece on Clarence McClendon in the past. I, Sir William, with my own personal drama and career as a blogger, would be a perfect fit for “Preachers Of LA” to really get things stirred up because I have talked about them all! Obnoxious gives you the inside information! What say you?
However, I want thou to rad a very insightful piece about the show by our friends over at PimpPreacher.com below:
Real Preachers Of LA Just Discovered That The IRS Was Also Watching: New Lawsuits Challenging Tax Exemptions For Pastors
PimpPreacher.com New Orleans Bureau 02/14/2014
When the show Real Preachers of L.A. first took to the air the ratings for the show were off the charts, some would even say it set records for Gospel Programing. As Believers tuned in to watch the Pastors flaunt their lavish lifestyles two other unexpected groups also tuned in, the Internal Revenue Service and the Freedom From Religion Groups.
During the first season of the Preachers of L.A. fans of the show received unprecedented access to the lifestyles of pastors like Bishop Noel Jones as the show captured his extravagant homes, and luxury cars, all of which were Tax Free. The Pastors even boasted about living the lifestyle of Rap Stars, but there is one major issue with that comparison, Rap Stars like Jay-Z pay millions of dollars in Taxes.
The Real Preachers of L.A. really did all of the hard investigative work for Transparency Groups and Atheist Organization, who would like to see an end to the free lunch Pastors have enjoyed. While the Pastors were cruising through poor neighborhoods in their Bentleys, their actions and possessions were also being gathered as evidence. The flamboyancy of the same Pastors will soon play out in another daytime drama but not in front of Judge Judy in some scripted People’s Court episode, this time all of the rulings will be real and life changing.
The first blow to the life style of rich pastors came last November when U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which claimed that clergy members have an unfair advantage in receiving untaxed income to pay for rental housing or home ownership and property taxes.
The second blow came earlier this week when the same court issued another ruling that would allow a lawsuit that could force all pastors to report every dime they receive or face prison time for tax evasion. The day of Pastors having members line up to give a $500 Love Offering could soon see a young lady at the end of that line with a Wal-Mart like cash register, to track the taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service.
The only hope that your Pastor can keep his 18k sq foot home tax free (Kenneth Copeland) is a pending appeal that will be heard by the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago. The appeal comes as no surprise, said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
“We knew this was going to happen,” Gaylor said. “We have formulated this case to go up to the Supreme Court, so an appeal was inevitable. It’s a very strong case. We’re right. I think everyone knows we’re right. If reason prevails and the Constitution prevails, we will prevail.”
Crabb, a judge in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, wrote in her decision that the housing allowance was a boon to ministers. The exemption was estimated to have saved clergy members $2.3 billion in taxes from 2002-2007.
The exemption “provides a benefit to religious persons and no one else, even though doing so is not necessary to alleviate a special burden on religious exercise,” Crabb wrote.
Gaylor cited a study by Christianity Today magazine that found 84 percent of senior pastors receive a housing allowance from $20,000 to $38,000 a year in added salary that is not reported or taxed. That money can be used not just to pay for rent or a mortgage, but also for home maintenance and repairs.
The Devil Is Attaxing Us!
Pastors all across this country will soon take to their Pimping Pulpits and play the victim cards, but before you side with them I ask that you please consider the following.
Every time you receive a check stub from your job, the taxes have already been deducted from your check, but not your Pastor’s pay check. All of his money, every dime of it has basically been tax free with the exception of the part that he opted to report. Church has been the number one venue to launder money undetected, and untaxed for over 200 years, and for the first time we could see these pastors having to finally contribute to the funding of Government with some of that free money.
Please do not feel sorry for them – the Pastors brought this on themselves! The reason they were given the exemption in the first place was because lawmakers considered the Church a Not for Profit entity, but the Real Preachers of L.A. has single handedly destroyed that entire thought process. This one television series hand delivered a perfectly packaged lawsuit that will eventually sweep through the Supreme Court indefensible, because their Rock Star lifestyles are also indefensible.
Having said that, I would not want the taxes collected from pastors to go into the general fund of the Federal Government, but placed in an escrow within the local community where that church is located. In doing so we would assure for the first time that money collected from the poor, would get returned to the poor. This is the only way to force church to be what our Christ envisioned, a resource center for the community. It is also the only way to guarantee that “There may be Meat in the Storehouse” as God demanded in the Book of Malachi, if we could only prevent Pastors from to eating all of the Meat.
It is a sad narrative that we now need the Government to legislate the hearts of Pastors. To the Preachers of L.A. I say thank you for proving something that few people believed before your first episode, that there is no money like Church money.
At the Church Folk Revolution we don’t need money, we only need passionate people to help repair the Body of Christ.
Was that not an insightful read and again I know you agree with me that I should be in the new season of “Preachers Of LA“
