General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTelevangalist Benny Hinn's "Church" Being Raided Right Now By IRS in Dallas
local TV picking it up right now
malaise
(269,254 posts)Great news
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/northeast-tarrant/article146961764.html
When will the IRS go after the Con?
Skittles
(153,261 posts)are so easily fooled by people like Trump
csziggy
(34,139 posts)Investigators with the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Postal Service served a search warrant Wednesday at the Grapevine offices of televangelist Benny Hinn.
A large number of agents walked in and out of the offices with boxes, KXAS-TV (NBC5) reported, but officials wouldn't confirm to the TV station what they're investigating or whether they're looking into Hinn.
A woman who answered the phone for the Benny Hinn Ministries headquarters said she had no information.
Hinn was the subject of a 2007 U.S. Senate inquiry that looked into the spending of six televangelists. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, questioned the personal use of church-owned airplanes, luxury homes and credit cards by pastors and their families, but there was no definitive finding of wrongdoing when the investigation ended in 2011.
More: https://www.dallasnews.com/life/faith/2017/04/26/irs-investigators-search-televangelist-benny-hinns-offices-grapevine
RedWedge
(618 posts)world wide wally
(21,758 posts)Initech
(100,129 posts)jls4561
(1,267 posts)Especially if the gops want to make endorsing candidates from the pulpit legal.
Give traditional churches some leeway to maintain their buildings and legitimate charity work. Missionary work - sorry, finance that it on your own. Perks for mega preachers taxed at higher than the maximum rate.
Of course, this would result in a long and complicated tax form because they would have to prove that they did charity work without indoctrination. Oh well.
Think of the money that would flow into the government in order to actually help people. In the next administration.
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,509 posts)Donkees
(31,515 posts)SonofDonald
(2,050 posts)That got a belly laugh.!
spiderpig
(10,419 posts)You might want to take a teensy-weensy look at the "Church" of $cientology while you're at it.
Small victory here.
Clearwater City Council votes 5-0 to buy downtown parcel coveted by the Church of Scientology
http://web.tampabay.com/news/scientology/live-clearwater-city-council-set-to-vote-on-land-coveted-by-the-church-of/2321083
spiderpig
(10,419 posts)I've read the "Church" is making an all-out effort to renovate Clearwater so that it will be fit for Crown Prince Cruise, who is in the process of moving there.
Clearwater residents - I haven't been there since my college days a million years ago, but I've heard the omnipresence of Co$ and their peeps are a creepy presence in what used to be a lovely town. True?
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)They have fully taken over downtown and have bought large living complexes off of Keene between Gulf to Bay and Sunset Point. Neither area is much of an attraction. Downtown Clearwater hasn't been for decades outside of the new marina and Coachman Park.
Permanut
(5,687 posts)Or karma. Or yin and yang. Anyway, great news!
Mariana
(14,861 posts)Permanut
(5,687 posts)colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)God wants you to send me hard cash and will reward you for helping me buy another mansion or whatever.
People who send them money are nothing but suckers being used.
muntrv
(14,505 posts)Gawd!
Coventina
(27,223 posts)sinkingfeeling
(51,490 posts)Omaha Steve
(99,833 posts)I would love to be the judge, jury, and executioner!
meow2u3
(24,775 posts)I think the IRS should go after EVERY SINGLE ONE of those religious frauds prosperity gospel preachers and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law for tax evasion. They've been abusing the tax code to pose as ordained ministers in order to finance a luxurious lifestyle which makes Trump's scams look like child's play by comparison.
oasis
(49,454 posts)area51
(11,934 posts)Benny Hinn/Benny Hill montage.
Kentonio
(4,377 posts)Why is he hitting those people and throwing them on the floor? Call me a dumb athiest if you will, but I don't get it.
shenmue
(38,506 posts)lindysalsagal
(20,785 posts)People. Are. Irrational.
titaniumsalute
(4,742 posts)Now that was funny shit. Oh and Earnest Angely.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)sunonmars
(8,656 posts)HAB911
(8,932 posts)Rustyeye77
(2,736 posts)ive never seen this idiot before.
Stallion
(6,476 posts)Robert Tilton was, at one time, one of the most famous names in televangelism. His show, Success-N-Life, was beamed into homes throughout the nation and earned the pastors church millions per year during the later 1980s and early 1990s.
One of Tiltons main tactics to get his enormous following to donate money was to ask them to send prayer requests to his ministry. He claimed he would then use his special connection to God to personally pray over the requests and increase the chance of the prayer being answered, assuming a little bit of money was sent in alongside it.
The system operated for several years until ABCs Prime Time Live caught wind of the scam. Following investigations, they released a special named The Apple of Gods Eye. Among other things, it showed how the prayer requests were simply being thrown out in the trashminus the money, of course.
http://listverse.com/2015/01/16/10-evangelist-preachers-who-fell-from-grace/
spanone
(135,919 posts)fucking over the poor and old in the name of god