Not that we want to give Westboro Baptist Church any more oxygen than it’s already sucked out of the room, but as it’s tax season, its activities do beg a certain question.
Namely, how does the darn thing remain tax-exempt? Isn’t it flirting beyond the margins of allowable activities for the usual 501(c)(3) nonprofit status? On Slate, Miranda P. Fleischer of the University of Colorado Law School offers a direct if unsettling answer: not really:
Because they avoid direct advocacy. Nonprofits are allowed to hold opinions on public issues, of course. Only overtly political activities (electioneering, for example) are forbidden. The easiest way to lose 501(c)(3) protection is to contribute to a candidate’s campaign, whether through funding, stated support, or the contribution of office space. But the WBC has never made such mistakes….
The WBC has not escaped taxation entirely. In 2008, a Kansas State Board of Tax Appeals ruled that their truck, a 2002 Ford F-150 used to transport signs to protests, was too involved in their “political activities and secular philosophy, which constitute a significant part of [the church’s] picketing activities” to be tax-exempt. If an IRS lawyer really wanted to go after the WBC, he could point out that most of the 100 or so congregants are members of the Phelps family, and that a number of them work for the family’s successful law firm—which makes them seem more like a home-grown activist group with a vested financial interest in political outcomes than a religious organization. If a church seems to operate for mostly nonreligious purposes (i.e., political work or personal profit), the IRS can revoke 501(c)(3) status.
If a church seems to operate for mostly nonreligious purposes (i.e., political work or personal profit), the IRS can revoke 501(c)(3) status.