Senators James Lankford (R-OK) and Ben Sasse (R-NE) led a letter signed by a group of senators to Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George requesting a review of the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) processes for making tax-exempt status determinations, and the apparent failure of quality controls in the case of the Christians Engaged religious organization.
As CBN News reported last month, the IRS decided to back down and granted tax-exempt status to Christians Engaged, a nonprofit organization that educates and empowers Christians to be civically engaged while praying for America and our elected officials.
The reversal came after a national backlash against the IRS’s initial rejection of Christians Engaged’s nonprofit status. The IRS had claimed at the time, “Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the Republican party and candidates.”
In response to the IRS denial, Christians Engaged President Bunni Pounds said, “We just want to encourage more people to vote and participate in the political process. How can anyone be against that?”
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The letter signed by Lankford, Sasse, and 11 other senators reminded George that the IRS review of religious or faith-based organizations seeking nonprofit status must be “based on law and fact, and absent extraneous and inappropriate commentary.”
“Agents are trained to process applications in a neutral fashion, void of politics or agents’ personal beliefs, and with adherence to the law and the facts of each application,” the senators wrote in their letter to the Treasury Inspector General. “With this process in mind, our concern for the neutral and respectful consideration of all applications, particularly for those with a religious or faith-based mission in light of the perceived hostility toward Christians Engaged in the IRS’s proposed adverse determination letter, has grown.”
“It is important to ensure that the multiple steps the IRS identified, including layers of “quality control” review, are indeed based on law and fact, and absent extraneous and inappropriate commentary,” the letter continued. “As an agency within the federal government, the IRS should take care to ensure no decisions are based on bias for or against a political or religious viewpoint.”
Read the text of the full letter here.
The letter was also signed by senators Kevin Cramer (R-ND), John Barrasso (R-WY), Mike Braun (R-IN), Todd Young (R-IN), Steve Daines (R-MT), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Rick Scott (R-FL), Tim Scott (R-SC), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), and Marco Rubio (R-FL).
On its website, the organization states it is educational, Christian, and non-partisan.
As CBN News reported in June, Christians Engaged, was denied the tax exemption in a letter from IRS Exempt Organizations Director Stephen A. Martin.
“Specifically, you educate Christians on what the Bible says in areas where they can be instrumental including the areas of the sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, biblical justice, freedom of speech, defense, and borders and immigration, U.S. and Israel relations,” Martin wrote. “The Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the Republican party and candidates. This disqualifies you from exemption under IRC Section 501(c)(3).”
In its administrative appeal letter to the IRS, attorneys for the First Liberty Institute, a religious rights law firm, wrote, “By finding that Christians Engaged does not meet the operational test, Director Martin errs in three ways: 1) he invents a nonexistent requirement that exempt organizations be neutral on public policy issues; 2) he incorrectly concludes that Christians Engaged primarily serves private, nonexempt purposes rather than public, exempt purposes because he thinks its beliefs overlap with the Republican Party’s policy positions; and 3) he violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech, and Free Exercise, and Establishment clauses by engaging in both viewpoint discrimination and religious discrimination.”
After the appeal, Director Martin granted the application for 501(c)(3) status.
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at CBN