THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 5, 1995 TAG: 9502050039
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 154 lines
Agents of the Internal Revenue Service, in a violation of department rules, warned five black churches in Norfolk last spring that they could lose their federal tax exemptions through political activity during the Virginia Senate campaign.
Margaret Milner Richardson, the commissioner of the IRS, said in a letter to Rep. Owen B. Pickett, D-2nd, that the churches were contacted in an ``informal and non-threatening way,'' but she acknowledged that the actions ``did not comply'' with IRS regulations.
Richardson said the visits were not intended as threats. But some of the pastors involved ``were scared to death by them,'' said a congressional staff member familiar with the situation.
Pickett, in a letter to another congressman, described the local pastors as ``intimidated and afraid of saying anything about the issue.''
The Norfolk churches were the only ones in the nation to receive such cautionary visits, Richardson said. The names of the churches and pastors have not been released because of laws protecting the privacy of IRS operations. Congressional sources, however, confirmed that all five were in Norfolk and have African-American congregations.
Richardson said an internal IRS inquiry found ``no basis to suggest that the service has targeted black churches or has any sort of selected enforcement program directed towards them.''
Churches and other tax-exempt organizations are forbidden from endorsing or working on behalf of particular political candidates.
The involvement of religion-based organizations in party politics, though, has become a frequent campaign flash point. Conservatives have complained privately that African-American pastors push the limits of IRS law by hosting political candidates and, in some cases, allowing them to be recognized from or speak from the pulpit.
The political left counters that the ``religious right'' has been equally aggressive in mixing the Gospel and the ballot box through such organizations as the Chesapeake-based Christian Coalition. While those groups carefully avoid backing individual candidates, their opponents say the religious right's extensive and well-financed media campaigns make it clear which candidates are favored.
The IRS has strict rules about intervening with religious organizations. Agents cannot challenge or investigate a church unless a high-ranking IRS official ``reasonably believes'' that a church is violating the tax code.
Richardson, in her letter to Pickett, acknowledged that the agents who approached the Norfolk churches did not have proper basis to do so. In this instance, agents from the Richmond office reportedly were acting on media reports about the Virginia political campaign.
The sensitivity of the issue is underscored by the unwillingness of many of those involved to discuss it.
Pickett, citing privacy concerns, declined to be interviewed. Of three pastors independently identified as having been contacted by the IRS, one denied that he had been approached, and a second initially agreed to be interviewed, then canceled the appointment at the last minute.
The third, Dr. Raymond Dean, pastor of the 1,700-member Mount Gilead Baptist Church, spoke openly of feeling ``intimidated'' by a visit from an IRS agent. He said he was approached the week after former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, former state Attorney General Mary Sue Terry and Rep. Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, D-3rd, attended a service there.
Wilder and Scott are Virginia's most prominent African-American political leaders. Wilder was running as an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate at the time and frequently visited churches in his campaign. He did not respond to requests for comment.
``After that,'' Dr. Dean said, ``an agent came to my church and told me that she wasn't there to do anything but just to give me a slap on my wrist, to let me know that we stood to lose possibly our exemption status as a charitable organization because I was politically active as far as my church was concerned.
``I said, `Wait a minute, how can you say that about our church? When have you visited and asked Pat Robertson's church?' Had she visited the church of (the Rev. Jerry) Falwell, Liberty Baptist in Lynchburg?
``I said, `I don't understand how those guys are openly and boldly and publicly entertaining political people and you haven't visited them.' ''
Dr. Dean said his church still welcomes politicians, but he said the IRS visit made him careful about political activities during services.
``I told the lady when she was there, `You can believe you me, by you coming here today, I will not allow the IRS to remove our tax status from us because of our failure to abide by the law.'
``I will never go against the IRS ruling as far as our tax exempt status,'' he said, ``but any politician is welcome to Mount Gilead Baptist Church. But they won't be there politicking, soliciting votes.''
Troubled by the IRS visit, the pastor went to see Pickett. The congressman's initial letter to the IRS drew a response that did not answer his questions, citing privacy rules. The response left Pickett ``furious,'' a staff member said.
After a series of increasingly hard-edged letters between the IRS and congressional offices, running from April 1994 through the weeks after the November election, Richardson, the IRS commissioner, directly addressed what she called the ``serious allegations'' raised by Pickett and Rep. J.J. Pickle, D-Texas.
The churches are in Pickett's district, which covers most of Norfolk and Virginia Beach. Pickle at that time was chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight of the House Ways and Means Committee. He and Pickett used the subcommittee's investigative muscle to press the IRS for answers about its agents' tactics.
Howard Schoenfeld, an IRS official in Washington whose office deals with tax-exempt organizations, agreed to discuss the agency's procedures only as they apply broadly to relations between churches and federal tax investigations.
He emphasized that no contact should take place unless, as Richardson's letter said, a ranking official ``reasonably believes'' a violation may exist.
``The idea behind that rule,'' Schoenfeld said, ``is to keep a distance between the Internal Revenue Service and churches. Churches therefore are not subject to the ordinary kinds of audit scrutiny that other taxpayers and other organizations are subject to.
``From time to time it has happened that some IRS offices have noticed that there are perhaps borderline situations and have voluntarily and in a constructive and in a helpful manner tried to educate churches about the tax laws, have contacted them to apprise them about the rules in that area.
``And the truth of the matter is,'' Schoenfeld said, ``that has sometimes caused problems. And the truth of the matter is, that is not something we want our agents to do. And the reason for it is that those contacts are subject to misinterpretation.
``Even a friendly letter, a friendly phone call, we've found out, is trouble. So we do try to tell our agents not to contact churches unless there is a basis on which to have the issuance of a church-tax inquiry letter.''
Pickett has arranged for IRS representatives to meet next Monday night with the Tidewater Metro Baptist Ministers Conference, an organization made up predominantly of African-American pastors, to air the pastors' grievances and discuss the boundaries of IRS oversight of the churches' political activities.
Throughout last year's contentious Senate campaign, the role of religion was a frequent point of dispute. Just days before the election, Patrick McSweeney, the state Republican Party chairman, complained publicly that black ministers in Richmond were operating under a ``double standard'' after Democratic Sen. Charles S. Robb received a black pastor's endorsement during a televised religious service.
``Can you imagine what would have happened if that had been a white church?'' McSweeney asked at the time. ``The IRS would be down checking on their tax-exempt status.'' He apparently was unaware that exactly such a scenario had been played out with black churches in Norfolk months before.
Dr. Dean, of Mount Gilead Baptist, acknowledged that there can be differences in how black churches and white churches approach political involvement.
``All African-American preachers have always been politically active,'' he said. The church has long been credited as the backbone of the black community, serving as a prime mover in the lengthy struggle for civil rights.
``It's always been that way in the black community,'' he said, ``for a pastor that's old enough and brave enough to get involved.''
Some of the black pastors ``were scared to death'' of the agency's actions this spring during the Senate campaign.
KEYWORDS: BLACK CHURCHES AFRICAN AMERICAN CHURCHES
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