Tax Contempt

Television “evangelists” are never shy when it comes to asking you for money, but hey, with a name like Creflo Dollar, what would you expect?

But now, that insatiable need for your dough, may come back to bite them.

Benny Hinn under Senate investigation

On November 6, 2007, United States senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa announced an investigation of Hinn’s ministry by the United States Senate Committee on Finance. In a letter to BHM, Grassley asked for the ministry to divulge financial information to the Senate Committee on Finance to determine if Hinn made any personal profit from financial donations, and requested that Hinn’s ministry make the information available by December 6, 2007. The investigation also scrutinized five other televangelists: Paula White, Kenneth Copeland, Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer, and Creflo Dollar. On December 6, 2007, Hinn told the Associated Press that he would not respond to the inquiry until 2008.

Source

Hinn joins Dollar in refusing to answer questions in Senate investigation

A second Christian ministry is refusing to meet a Thursday deadline for a Senate investigation into preachers’ salaries, perks and travel, The Associated Press has learned.

Benny Hinn of World Healing Center Church Inc. and Benny Hinn Ministries of Grapevine, Texas, said in a statement to the AP on Thursday that he will not respond to the inquiry until next year.

Source

Ministry responses to televangelist review

On Friday, March 28, the Benny Hinn/World Healing Center Church delivered a second submission of information on cd and in hard copy form. This was the ministry’s second submission in a “rolling production” of documents.

“It’s good to see the majority of the ministries offering information. They receive generous tax breaks as non-profit organizations. In general, the federal Treasury forgoes billions of tax dollars a year to tax-exempt groups. The ministries’ sharing of material with the Senate committee in charge of tax policy shows an interest in accountability for their special tax status.”

Source (pdf) (See Also)

While I in no way want to see organizations like Benny Hinn’s profit inappropriately from donations, I am afraid all this is just part of the program (pogrom?) to bring down the credibility of Christians (the Church) worldwide.

There are many more (non-religious) tax-exempt organizations that the “federal Treasury forgoes billions of tax dollars a year” than the ones sited in this investigation. It may seem like a good thing on the surface, but I see a more sinister plot developing here.

In fact, groups like TBN, et al, may have always been a part of the plan for the Church’s “fall from grace”.