Geithner Tax Debt Forgiven; Car Wash Owes 4 Cents

"We're from the government and ..."

From Fox News

A California car wash owner says he’s rather amused after two Internal Revenue Service agents visited his business to demand he pay a debt – of four cents.

"I come to work, and my manager says, you're not going to believe this. A couple of IRS agents just came in here demanding payment for back taxes," Aaron Zeff told Fox 40 KTXL Sacramento. "I looked at the letter and I couldn't believe what I saw. The number was astonishing. Four cents."

But with late fees on those pennies and penalties dating back to 2006, Zeff says the taxman now wants to collect a total $202.35, the TV station reported.

Zeff’s attorney told Fox 40 that Harv's Car Wash always pays its taxes and “never had any issues like this come up.” Zeff said he would have paid the amount owed if he had been notified, but he said the only notice he received from the agency was a letter saying he had filed his returns and didn't owe any more money.

Still, in the event the attorney can’t sort this all out, Zeff's customers have been more than happy to pitch in to help, Harv's Car Wash cashier Ana Makhely told Fox 40.

"Oh, it's been hilarious. People have been coming, like, would you like four cents? Help you out with your little bills," she said.

ACORN Officials Videotaped Telling 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' How to Lie to IRS

An employee at ACORN's Baltimore office advises a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute during a videotaped meeting in July.

From Fox News

Officials with the controversial community organizing group ACORN were secretly videotaped offering to assist two individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute, encouraging them to lie to the Internal Revenue Service and providing guidance on how to claim underage girls from South America as dependents.

The videotape was made public Thursday on BigGovernment.com, a political blog launched by Andrew Breitbart as a companion site to his BigHollywood.breitbart.com blog.

In the videotape, made on July 24, James O'Keefe, a 25-year-old independent filmmaker, posed as a pimp with a 20-year-old woman named "Kenya" who posed as a prostitute while visiting ACORN's office in Baltimore. The couple told ACORN staffers they wanted to secure housing where the woman could continue to maintain a prostitution business.

ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — bills itself as the nation's largest community of low- and moderate-income families "working together for social justice and stronger communities," according to its Web site. The organization has been accused by Republicans and conservative activists with fraud in voter registration drives around the country and has been under fire since last year for its support of President Obama and for its planned participation in next year's census.

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IRS Demands that Pro-Life Group Swear it Will Not Oppose Planned Parenthood

Thomas More attorneys request IRS stop violating coalition's constitutional rights to legal protests

From LifeSiteNews
By Kathleen Gilbert

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has told a non-profit coalition of pro-life groups in Iowa to promise that it would not organize protests at Planned Parenthood abortion facilities before it is granted tax exempt status.

Pro-life lawyers say the organization has steadily kept within the guidelines for non-profit religious, educational and charitable groups. However, several months after the group applied for tax-exempt status, an IRS agent contacted Coalition for Life Iowa president Sue Martinek to inquire as to whether the group engages in any "picketing" or protesting at Planned Parenthood, and questioned the group's prayer activity outside Planned Parenthood facilities.

Lawyers with the Thomas More Society say the agent asked Martinek "to have all Coalition Board members sign a statement that the Coalition will not 'picket' or 'protest' outside Planned Parenthood or similar organizations and will not 'organize' others to do so," and indicated that the IRS "would approve the Coalition's pending form 1023 application once such statement was submitted."

The Thomas More Society issued a statement Monday decrying the "prejucidial" questioning and announcing they would take the IRS to court if it fails to grant the group tax-exempt status, apparently solely based upon its religious affiliation and speech.

"The IRS' requests come perilously close to violating the First Amendment constitutional rights of the Coalition's supporters," said the Society.

"The IRS's delay and questioning of the Coalition's tax-exempt, legitimate activities constitutes unnecessary and prejudicial interference with the Coalition's legal right to a tax-exempt determination. Consequently, the IRS should approve the Coalition's 1023 application without further delay."

The lawyers point out that many other organizations regularly advocate on both sides of these issues, and they have not been hindered in obtaining or maintaining tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3).

"The IRS not only erroneously forbade the Coalition for Life of Iowa from engaging in 'advocacy' as a section 501(c)(3) non-profit organization; they also never gave any explanation as to why their request was relevant," said Thomas Brejcha, president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Society.

"The Coalition has clearly and truthfully stated that all its activities fall in line with IRS guidelines. The IRS is protecting Parenthood and harassing the Coalition for Life of Iowa."

Warned Brejcha, "If the IRS can discriminate against one non-profit based on its beliefs and religious affiliation, then the IRS could regulate the speech of any other non-profit organization."

Coalition for Life of Iowa president Sue Martinek did not answer LifeSiteNews.com calls for comment as of press time.

"This is the way government oppression creeps into a society," commented American Life League president Judie Brown. "It starts when the government targets, and attempts to intimidate and silence the grassroots dissenters who will not dance to the tune of the Obama administration's radically pro-abortion policies."

"This is not only political intimidation by the Internal Revenue Service but it is a blatant violation of First Amendment rights," said Brown. "Neither the Coalition for Life of Iowa nor any other educational and advocacy organization should be subjected to such discriminatory scrutiny. This is a clear case of government repression."

Group Urges IRS Review of Liberty Tax Exemption

From OneNewsNow

The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State wants the Internal Revenue Service to review Liberty University's tax-exempt status because the Christian school revoked its recognition of a student-run Democratic club.

Americans United made the request in a letter to the IRS, arguing that Liberty's recognition of a Republican club offers GOP candidates support that is not available to Democratic candidates.

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The Path To Restoring Our American Government to the People

By John Hanson

The power of Congress to tax our income has had far reaching effects. They have used it to gradually erode many of our rights under the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Amendments. Changing the tax code has already affected our rights to practice our own religion, to assemble, and to privacy just to mention a few. Imagine the effect a change in the tax code could have on gun ownership if they (our ever more liberal Congress) decided to give a large tax credit for those who turn in guns and ammo to the government. And it won't cost the treasury a dime. As usual with tax credits, the taxpayers who don't receive the credit will cover the cost of giving out the credit. As usual they will avoid public scrutiny and objection by attaching the code change as they do with earmarks to some Bill with a completely different focus!

Did anyone notice that when the original 4 page “Bailout” bill was expanded to 400 pages to win congressional support 100 tax code changes were slipped in? Congress could avoid NRA pressure against making gun ownership illegal and still get their intended result, a great reduction in American gun owners. Why would Congress want to disarm it's citizenry? Our founding fathers wanted us to be armed. For Congress it is all a matter of control. For us it is a matter of liberty, the freedom to govern ourselves and not be ruled by them.

At Zap The IRS we work to promote passage of the FairTax bill not just for our economic survival but for our inalienable right to liberty. Passage of the FairTax as written will strip Congress of the power to own and control our income...in other words, OUR LIFE.

I admire my fellow Americans who are working hard for so many different causes. There are advocacy groups all over the internet. They seek changes from Congress regarding immigration, abortion, gun ownership, marriage, energy, the environment, and on and on and on. Working to pass new legislation regarding these issues will amount to a monumental waste of time if Congress is not stripped of its power to control our earnings. Consider this quote made in the early 19th century:

"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws." -Amschel Mayer Rothschild (1773-1855)

All the advocacy groups out there are composed of Americans of every political stripe and persuasion. They all have different views on the same issues. They propose and advocate different solutions for the same problems. This is very American! Always has been. There is truly only one issue they can all unite to promote to give any meaning to whatever laws they may succeed to get passed. That issue is the FairTax. What all the Americans out there have in common is that they are tax payers who need to take back control of their liberty and money from the government and restore it to being a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Our laws will become meaningless if we are ruled by the government rather than served by the government.

Join the 2nd American Revolution at www.ZapTheIRS.com.

Pastor Becomes IRS Target

From OneNewsNow.com

A group that supports the false philosophy of separation of church and state has filed action against another pastor for having his say about politics.

Bishop Robert E. Smith is senior pastor at Word of Outreach and Christian Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has lodged a complaint against him for endorsing John McCain for president from the pulpit on October 12.

"Bishop Smith knowingly and flagrantly violated the law and has even dared the IRS to investigate him for it," says Americans United leader Barry Lynn in a press release. "I hope the federal tax agency promptly takes him up on that."

But Smith contends the law upon which the complaint was filed with the Internal Revenue Service is unconstitutional.

"Congress cannot make any law that prohibits the free exercise of my faith," the pastor explains. "So a part of my faith as a minister is not only to deal with issues, but to deal with the people who are making the laws that affect the issues -- because I preach a two-sided gospel: the gospel of Christ for salvation, and the gospel of the kingdom for the political stability of its people. So that gets into politics."

The Arkansas pastor remembers a time when pastors could speak freely from the pulpit -- and did. "Well, that's the way it has been," he laments, "but since it's coming out in the form as it is now, a lot of the pastors are getting cold feet and they're backing up."

Smith is one of 33 pastors around the country who have spoken from the pulpit on political candidates and issues as part of Alliance Defense Fund's project to challenge the law and generate a lawsuit to take the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court. Complaints have been filed with the IRS against seven churches so far.

Pastors Plan To Defy IRS Ban On Political Speech

Ministers will intentionally violate ban on campaigning
by nonprofits in hopes of generating a test case.

By Duke Helfand
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Setting the stage for a collision of religion and politics, Christian ministers from California and 21 other states will use their pulpits Sunday to deliver political sermons or endorse presidential candidates -- defying a federal ban on campaigning by nonprofit groups.

The pastors' advocacy could violate the Internal Revenue Service's rules against political speech with the purpose of triggering IRS investigations.

That would allow their patron, the conservative legal group Alliance Defense Fund, to challenge the IRS' rules, a risky strategy that one defense fund attorney acknowledges could cost the churches their tax-exempt status. Congress made it illegal in 1954 for tax-exempt groups to publicly support or oppose political candidates.

"I'm going to talk about the un-biblical stands that Barack Obama takes. Nobody who follows the Bible can vote for him," said the Rev. Wiley S. Drake of First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park. "We may not be politically correct, but we are going to be biblically correct. We are going to vote for those who follow the Bible."

Drake was the target of a recent IRS investigation into his endorsement last year of former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. In the end, Drake was cleared.

Drake and 32 other pastors who have signed on to the "pulpit initiative" have sparked loud condemnations by fellow clergy and advocates of the separation of church and state.

These critics, such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argue that Sunday's sermons at churches in Oregon, Texas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and other states will violate federal tax law by politicizing the pulpit. That, they believe, will undercut the independence churches have long enjoyed to speak out about moral and ethical issues in American life, including women's suffrage, child labor and civil rights.

"The integrity of the religious community is at stake when religion and politics become entangled," said the Rev. Eric Williams of the North Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio.

Williams was recruited for the defense fund but instead joined with 54 other Christian and Jewish clergy members to file a complaint against the initiative with the IRS.

The religious leaders asked the agency to stop the Arizona-based defense fund from recruiting churches and to investigate whether its efforts may jeopardize its own tax-exempt status.

Representing the religious leaders are three Washington attorneys, all former IRS officials, who also filed a complaint accusing defense fund attorneys of violating IRS rules by helping the churches break federal law.

Meanwhile, a separate group of 180 ministers, rabbis and imams also has sought to counter the "pulpit initiative."

Members of the Interfaith Alliance -- which includes the nation's top Episcopal bishop -- have signed a pledge to refrain from electioneering in their houses of worship.

"Political activity and political expressions are very important, but partisan politics are . . . . a death knell to the prophetic freedom that any religious organization must protect," said the Rev. Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, who signed the pledge.

All Saints survived a nearly two-year IRS investigation after former Rector George Regas spoke out against the Iraq war on the eve of the 2004 presidential election. Bacon repeatedly said the church did not engage in campaigning.

The IRS dropped the case last year even though agency officials indicated that they still considered the sermon to be illegal.

All Saints leaders voiced frustration Wednesday at pulpit initiative backers for using the Pasadena church's fight with the IRS as fodder for their cause.

"These people are wanting to promote one candidate over another and that's a huge difference," Bacon said.

At the heart of the controversy is the Johnson amendment, named after former President Lyndon Johnson, a senator from Texas when it was enacted in 1954. The measure stated that nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations cannot participate in political campaigns for or against candidates for public office.

Many churches have appeared to step over the line, but legal scholars could recall only one church that lost its tax-exempt status -- a congregation in New York that urged voters not to vote for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential race.

The defense fund said churches targeted by the IRS would serve as clients for lawsuits against the agency in federal court.

The defense fund issued seemingly contradictory statements about the initiative. On one hand, it insists pastors will not endorse candidates and will simply exercise their constitutional rights by addressing "the differing positions of the presidential candidates in light of Scripture."

On the other hand, the defense fund describes its efforts as a "strategic litigation plan" that seeks to "restore the right of each pastor to speak scriptural truth from the pulpit" without losing a church's tax-exempt status.

"The bottom line is that churches and pastors have a right to speak freely from the pulpit," said Dale Schowengerdt, a defense fund attorney working on the project. "They should not be intimidated into silence by unconstitutional IRS regulations or rules."

Still, recognizing the confrontational nature of their strategy and wary of protests, the defense fund released the name of only one pastor ahead of Sunday -- the Rev. Gus Booth of the Warroad Community Church in rural Minnesota, who already is the subject of a complaint filed with the IRS over a May sermon in which he urged congregants to oppose Obama and Democratic New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton because of their positions on abortion.

"There is nobody who will ever tell me what I can and cannot say from behind my pulpit," Booth said, "except the spirit of God or the word of God."