First, the IRS doesn’t have people earning Sunday differential pay to go to churches just to scope out what’s happening.  Thus, they need people like you to provide them with leads.  Thank you for the effort you’ve described.  I fear, though, that this is not enough.

Leads with a nice letter stapled to them saying “Could you please look into this?” won’t cut the mustard.  The IRS is a bureaucracy and thus has a form for every function.  If you want a function performed, you must inject the form into the workflow or nothing (usually) will happen. 

In this case, did you make a formal filing by attaching the flyer to and fully completing either Form 3949A ( http://www.irstaxfraud.com/uploads/irstaxfraud.com_Form_3949A_Information_Referral.pdf ) or Form 211 ( http://www.irstaxfraud.com/upload/irstaxfraud.com_Form_211_Application_for_Award_for_Original_Information.pdf )?

If you didn’t use either form, the nice folks who opened your inquiry would need to be well enough trained to route it correctly.  Often, that happens…but not often enough.  To be certain that an inquiry is created in the giant paper workflow machine, you need to plant the right seed…er…form from which an investigation can grow.

Did you?

Deference goes a long way. That’s why they think they can get away with politics. The pushy book-thumping jerks. 

From the article: “After two courts dismissed the case, the attorney for an Ypsilanti pastor who is challenging a Michigan law that restricts what ministers and other religious leaders can say about politics plans to file another appeal Friday.”

A little different story because the guy feels like he’ll be unfairly prosecuted, even though he’s never been prosecuted and there’s no real precedent. It has been laughed out of court. Twice. The guy doesn’t get the tax exempt part though.

Uh, because they can, and have, argued that the seperation of church and state prevents such regulation, so long as they’re within the bounds of a church (also respecting that seperation, and staying out of the state’s business). I say that because I have to assume fro your question that you’re not familiar with US Civics 101. The rest of what you said makes perfect sense, and would be sensible… but when did religeon and sense ever collide with universally acceptable results?

Where I think this ges funny is when churches put cell phone towers in their steeples. What’s the EM limit? Who can tell a church that it’s cell phone tower is illegally powerful. How can the feds regulate what happens inside a steeple??

Why not? It’s the church’s policy to allow it.

Thanks for the informed opinion, in any case.

But I do think there is an ambiguity about the pulpit. In many congregations, the pulpit is an open forum. The speech of any one congregant over the pulpit cannot mean that the whole organization has acted. I am acquainted with the materiality rules in the Section 501 and there is grey.

If an AIDS center had an open meeting and one member admonished the attendees to vote for Obama because under Romney agencies would be less sensitive, that speech would not violate the exempt status.
What about a volunteer?
What about an employee?
What about the president of the AIDS center?

So your black and white rule is no more helpful than the assertions of these pastors. I think they are indefensibly across the line when they announce a special service and when the professional pastor speaking as pastor makes endorsements.

I think the pastor qua pastor can speak to moral and social issues, but many of these guys http://www.speakupmovement.org/Church/Content/pdf/PFS_2012_Churches_Final_list.pdf who have publicly flouted the requirements have crossed the line.