Focus On The Family Has Declared Itself A Church, Avoiding IRS Disclosure Rules

[muriel_volestrangler]

Focus on the Family, the behemoth Religious Right organization founded by James Dobson, has declared itself to be a church, thereby avoiding a requirement that it file public tax documents, according to IRS records and a document available on the organization’s website.

Focus on the Family filed as a non-church 501(c)(3) nonprofit as recently as the 2014 fiscal year, submitting to the IRS a publicly available Form 990 as most tax-exempt nonprofits are required to do. But when the group posted a Form 990 for the 2015 fiscal year on its website—dated October 26, 2017, and reporting a massive budget of $89 million—it was emblazoned with the message “Not required to file and not filed with the IRS. Not for public inspection.”

On the part of the form on which it is required to identify the reason for its public charity status, the group indicates that it is a “church, convention of churches or association of churches.” In an “explanation of church status,” the organization states that while it hasn’t filed with the IRS because the IRS has told it that it’s “not required” to do so, it would “post a pro-forma 990 on our website and make copies available to donors.”
...
Gail Harmon, an attorney who has advised nonprofits on tax law for more than 30 years, said that she had never before seen a nonprofit organization declare itself a church. “I just found it shocking,” she said.

“There’s nothing about them that meets the traditional definition of what a church is,” she said. “They don’t have a congregation, they don’t have the rites of various parts of a person’s life. There’s a whole system for what a church is.”

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/focus-on-the-family-has-declared-itself-a-church-avoiding-irs-disclosure-rules/

My guess is they'll continue to be a political organisation and hate group, secure in the knowledge that the Republicans will protect them from prosecution for illegal political advocacy by a church. Meanwhile, they'll reorganise their finances to hide where they come from, so that they can drop the 'church' sham if they need to when the Trump/Pence regime is booted out of power.

[stuffmatters]

1. Since the NRA been exposed as a Putin $ conduit,Repugs beefing up other dark money funnels

Repug IRS 501 C 3's ("social welfare" groups/ charities/churchs) provide the cover of anonymity essential to the funding of the Repug Party. So as the NRA machinery falls under scrutiny, seems logical Repugs increase the aptitude of other parts of their dark money funding infrastructure like these RW "religious"orgs and hate churches.
As with the NRA, the wealth of these RW religous orgs and churches has always seemed outsized. The Russian investigation is beginning to put a lot of their resources in a larger prospective of anonymous foreign dark money.
Just my humble suspicion and opinion.

[guillaumeb]

2. Can the Trump family declare themselves to be a church also? eom