Americans United has filed a complaint with the IRS over Rapid City, SD's Liberty Baptist Tabernacle. Reverend Wayne Williams, the letter says, urged his congregation to support a particular candidate in the Republican primary for Governor, a charge he did not deny. His defense? A different kind of tax exemption.
“I haven’t broken any laws,” Williams said Thursday. His church has never claimed tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) organization, which is an IRS designation, he said. “We are not a 501(c)(3) category. I’m perfectly willing to tell the IRS what I did.”
Williams files an individual federal income tax return, but Liberty Baptist does not. Williams said his church claims its tax-exempt status under the First Amendment, not an IRS regulation.
Of course, churches don't need to claim or apply for tax-exempt status under 501(c)(3). Those that meet the requirements are automatically exempt under that provision. And while the spirit of the First Amendment may be behind that presumption (we are not required to file papers with the government to be a church), it is still the IRS code that governs tax exemption privileges. Churches can be exempt under the tax code and refrain from electioneering (like all 501(c)(3) groups, religious and secular), or can pay taxes and campaign for candidates from the pulpit, but can't have it both ways.
