Iowa Church Forfeits Tax Exempt Status
Reverend Timothy Rude and the other leadership of the Walnut Creek Community Church in Windsor Heights, Iowa have just been caught abusing the public trust. The Walnut Creek Community Church claims tax exempt status, and thus does not contribute taxes to the government as the rest of us are required to do.
One of the conditions for tax exempt status, for religious and non-religious organizations alike, is that they refrain from using their organizational resources in order to support the political campaigns of candidates for public office. This rule exists in order to prevent political parties from using secondary organizations as tools for money laundering and evasion of campaign finance law.
The Walnut Creek Community Church has blatantly violated this condition of its tax exempt status. The church’s Reverend, Tim Rude, has admitted to sending an email in which he campaigned explicitly as the Reverend of the Walnut Creek Community Church, and on behalf of the other leaders of the church, in favor of the presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee. In the letter, he admitted to working in his capacity as Reverend, with the knowledge of his church with the leaders of other churches to organize pro-Huckabee campaign activism. Furthermore, the email was sent to the leaders of other churches in order to solicit their support “as Christians” for the Huckabee presidential campaign.
There is no ambiguity in the email, no room to argue that Tim Rude was merely speaking for himself, and not for his church. He wrote, “I am sure that you are aware that our entire Walnut Creek leadership staff, to my knowledge, is supporting Mike Huckabee. On July 20, we drove up to Ames and spoke with pastors ___ and ___ about our position and were well received.”
Furthermore, Reverend Rude used the email to explicitly campaign against another Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback, and to do so on the basis of Brownback’s religious identity. Even if the Walnut Creek Community Church’s campaigning for Mike Huckabee did not violate the terms of its tax exempt status, the church’s campaigning against Sam Brownback certainly did.
While Mike Huckabee “is one of us,” Rude wrote, “Senator Brownback converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002. Frankly, as a recovering Catholic myself, that is all I need to know about his discernment when compared to the Governor’s.”
Rude wrote about quite detailed planning of the Walnut Creek Community Church’s activities in favor of the Mike Huckabee for President campaign, saying, “we are trying to make a 1st or 2nd place showing in the Iowa Straw Poll to give our candidates a boost and viability. Money and media attention would be gained to the winners. All Huckabee needs is exposure in my opinion. The money will come and will the volunteers.”
There is reason to believe, given Tim Rude’s email, that a conspiracy involving many churches to campaign for Mike Huckabee in violation of the requirements of their nonprofit tax exempt status. Rude writes that another church “is trying to gain 1000 votes of people who were not planning on going to the Iowa Straw Poll from our efforts alone. Would you join us in accomplishing this goal?”
This activity goes well beyond a Reverend talking about how much he likes a political candidate from the pulpit. It seems that Reverend Tim Rude was working with other religious leaders to convert the Walnut Creek Community Church and several other churches into little more than part of the Mike Huckabee for President political machine. For these churches to retain their tax exempt status in spite of this activity would be a slap in the face of American taxpayers and a serious blow against the democratic political process in the United States.
Please, write to the IRS with a complaint urging an investigation of the political activities of the Walnut Creek Community Church and other churches in Iowa on behalf of the Mike Huckabee campaign. Such an investigation can lead to the revocation of the tax exempt status enjoyed by these churches.
Read the Reverend Rude’s email yourself, then write to:
IRS EO Classification
Mail Code 4910
1100 Commerce Street
Dallas, TX 75242
Although I didn’t notice at first that this was a leftist site, I did find this an interesting perspective. Thanks for writing a unique story with a different angle on the Brownback/Huckabee brawl.
Know Pastor Rude myself, I know him to be a honorable and sincere man. In regards to the call of asking for Walnut Creek’s tax-exempt status to be revoked because of this alleged churchwide support, can we ask for the same thing for all of those churches that have thrown their support behind candidates such as Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and other Democratic candidates? Just curious…
Uh, yes, Rob. It’s against the law.
Your Reverend Tim Rude is breaking the law, and working for the Mike Huckabee presidential campaign as a tax cheat.
That’s not honorable. If he’s going to use his church as a campaign organization, then his tax exempt status is forfeit. The American people don’t need to be giving financial support to a partisan political group like his “church”.
Is there any proof that he is using his church as a campaign organization? He said the leadership staff is backing Huckabee, but do you have any proof that the church is being used to campaign for him? Are there “Vote for Huckabee” campaigns at the church? Are church finances being donated to Huckabee’s campaign?
At the same time, does a person lose their freedom of speech when they decide to become a pastor? From what I’m seeing here, Pastor Rude is backing Huckabee on his own time. Unless he’s preaching to the worshippers at Walnut Creek to back his guy during Sunday sermons, I’m afraid there’s not much of a case.
Yes, Rob. There’s proof. There are the emails. If the church leadership is organizing as the church leadership, and he’s emailing in coordination with other pastors/reverends AS the reverend of his church on behalf of the effort to organize churches to turn out people to vote in the caucuses for Mike Huckabee, he’s up to his neck in the Mike Huckabee for President campaign, not as a private individual, but as the reverend of his church.
That is clearly illegal for the leader of any tax exempt organization.
People don’t lose their freedom of speech AS INDIVIDUALS when they run tax exempt organizations. But, in return for the privilege of having their organization exempt from paying taxes, YES, they are strictly regulated IN SO FAR as their actions are in the official capacity as the organization’s leader. That’s in order to prevent corruption of the sort that Tim Rude has immersed himself is.
There’s a huge case, Rob.
Funny, I never see this sort of activism when Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama and any other Democrat candidate makes an appearance at a church.
Funny, Tom, that’s not what is described by this post. And you haven’t been paying attention. At Irregular Times we have specifically criticized Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for their mixing of religion and politics.
Gosh, Tom, actually we wrote an article, a couple articles I think, here at Irregular Times drawing attention to when Barack Obama did just that, making an illegal campaign appearance at the church.
If you never see this sort of activism, it’s because you are willfully not looking. Funny, huh?
However, Barack Obama’s transgressions are nowhere near the proportions of Mike Huckabee’s. Why are you ignoring that, and engaging in this silly rhetoric that if two polticians do something bad, neither one of them is to blame?
You have presented an interesting argument that is lacking in one major area…legal authority. Your argument that the church is endorsing a candidate is quite a stretch. The e-mail was sent from one individual to another. The e-mail was NOT sent to the entire congregation, nor did Pastor Rude ever endorse Gov. Huckabee from the pulpit. In essence you are attacking someone that is exercising his first amendment free speech rights that happens to be a pastor.
I just read that e-mail again, Joel, and it specifically mentions pastors leading their members politically and using churches to drive people to the polls for Huckabee.