Trinity Foundation: Grassley Investigation

For the last three years, Trinity Foundation has been working with the Senate Finance Committee in their investigation of religious non-profit organizations. In November 2007 Sen. Charles Grassley sent letters to six televangelist ministries seeking to determine if they were abusing their non-profit tax status.

Sen. Grassley's office asked us to furnish information on televangelists' activities relating to two specific areas of the tax code-- conversion (using donor funds to benefit for-profit activities) and inurement (excessive compensation and/or lifestyle).

We've documented an increasing trend of abuse in those areas through our investigations over the past 20 years.

Others have confirmed our opinion. Deborah Bortner, former president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, told the committee, "I've been a securities regulator for 20 years, and I've seen more money stolen in the name of God than in any other way."

Mark W. Everson, the IRS Commissioner, in a letter to Grassley's committee, admitted even the IRS has not been able to properly confront the problem. For comparatively small organizations like the televangelists, he said, "the problem is compounded because we have little ability to monitor their operations against diversion of assets."

By virtue of our long interest in this arena, Trinity Foundation has been able to provide a valuable service in exposing many of these practices.

We are preparing an archive of material we've gathered, and plan to post it here in late 2008. Keep watching this site.