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Advocacy Blog
Thursday, May 22, 2008
IRS Clears the United Church of Christ of Any Electioneering
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has cleared the United Church of Christ (UCC), concluding that the denomination did not violate the section 501(c)(3) ban on political campaign intervention when Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) addressed its national meeting in June 2007. In February the UCC publicly announced that the IRS was investigating whether Obama's speech, while he was already a presidential candidate, violated restrictions on political activity of 501(c)(3) groups. Based on the church's response to its inquiry, the IRS found that the activity was not intervention or participation. The factors that the IRS considered included the fact that Obama was invited to speak in May 2006, before he announced his candidacy, and that he spoke in a noncandidate capacity.
The May 13 determination letter from the IRS noted that the UCC had taken the necessary steps to avoid Obama's appearance from being political in nature. The UCC "verbally communicated to those in attendance that Senator Obama was there as a member of the church and not as a candidate for office, that the audience should not attempt to engage in any political activities, and that the church's legal counsel had advised Senator Obama's campaign of the ground rules for his speech. . . . [T]he [UCC] did not authorize (or have any power to authorize) campaign volunteers for Senator Obama to set up tables near the entrances of the Hartford Civic Center . . . and that the activity was conducted on public property outside the control of the synod and therefore was not attributable to the church."
The Washington Post On Faith section reports that UCC Nationwide Special Counsel Donald C. Clark said that before an IRS inquiry or investigation even begins, the IRS should notify the entity, "with its attendant costs and chilling effect on constitutionally protected associational rights [. . . ] However, that currently is neither a Congressional mandate nor IRS practice, and was not done in this case." The posting further observes, "We need an Internal Revenue Service that is clear in its guidelines for tax-exempt religious organizations and we need the IRS to follow those guidelines. Otherwise, we are only left to conclude that there is either an organized or even a disorganized effort to repress certain faith voices while giving others a free pass."
Posted by Amanda Adams
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