(Photo: Fort Worth-area based televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s tax-exempt parsonage is located in Newark, Texas, and owned by Eagle Mountain International Church.)

After months of investigating tax loopholes that benefit businesses at the expense of taxpayers for its Unfair Burden article series, the Houston Chronicle turned its attention to church parsonages, which are mostly tax-exempt in Texas.

Key findings:

• “The state’s most populous counties identified 2,683 parsonages worth about $1 billion, costing other residents who must fund school districts and local governments $16 million every year.”
• “There is no dollar limit to a parsonage’s tax exemption. At least 28 of the clergy residences were worth more than $1 million.”
• “Across Texas’ largest counties, the Chronicle identified more than 30 parsonages for which appraisers had granted the 100 percent tax break even though they exceed the law’s 1-acre limit.”

In May, Houston Chronicle investigative reporter Jay Root contacted Trinity Foundation for assistance on the article series. It was a learning experience for all involved.  The main one Trinity Foundation helped with was the fourth in their series, focusing in on Kenneth Copeland’s parsonage and organization.

The Houston Chronicle submitted Open Records requests to Texas county appraisal districts, examined state tax code requirements to be recognized as a parsonage, and interviewed county appraisers after identifying parsonages that violated state law by covering more than one acre of land.

Staff photographers drove across the state taking pictures of parsonages. As a result, the Houston Chronicle has produced some of the best religion news coverage of 2021.

Continue reading “Houston Chronicle Investigates Parsonages Tax Exemption Abuses”

Photo: November 30^th is National Giving Day. Trinity Foundation joins a host of non-profit organizations raising funds on this day. Please check out our GoFundMe page.

(New video about why we investigate televangelists)
Recently we initiated a new project that will captivate national news media, and attempt to send shock waves through America’s church community and beyond.

We want to go for real impact:  The digital equivalent of Luther’s 95 thesis on the Wittenberg Castle Cathedral door.

Trinity Foundation’s new investigative project takes aim at a particular method of fraud used in televangelist fundraising.  We are developing a strategy to expose this fraud so that potential donors won’t be deceived by the dishonest words of religious conmen.

To accomplish this goal, we need to bring new people on board. Trinity Foundation needs to hire an additional investigator or two, but currently we lack the financial means to do so.

Our new personnel would assist in updating our “Governance Project”; will research the assets of televangelists and mega-church pastors; and will research legal strategies for establishing precedent-setting civil and criminal court cases to protect the public from religious fraud.

Our founder, Ole Anthony, called for a 3^rd wave of Christianity, but first the church at large needs to be held accountable and re-introduce transparency, accountability, and integrity—something that is sorely lacking in large media ministries and mega-churches.

Our team excels in open-source investigations, digging through online data for possible fraud, money laundering, and self-dealing.  We track ministry and televangelist aircraft and verify ownership.  Preacher Planes—a new Trinity Foundation daily blog on Instagram and Twitter—keeps this in the public’s eye.

We’ve created this GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for the new project and attempt to cover our entire 2022 budget. Please consider financially supporting our investigations.

GoFundMe donors will receive periodic updates about the project and our investigations.

A couple of months ago, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) published the Audit Technique Guide for Religious Organization.

Could this signal the IRS is intending to take stronger action against churches and ministries abusing their tax-exempt status?

For the past 15 years, the IRS rarely audited religious organizations or prosecuted pastors for financial crimes.

Prominent Christian religious leaders are more likely to die in a private plane crash than to be prosecuted for tax evasion.

Since 2014, Bahamas-based televangelist Myles Munroe and Remnant Fellowship Church founder Gwen Shamblin both died when their privately-owned jets crashed. Trinity Foundation has attempted to investigate both Munroe and Shamblin for international money laundering.

During this same time period only one televangelist, Todd Coontz,  was prosecuted and convicted for tax evasion. His ministry’s tax-exempt status has not been revoked.

Continue reading “Religious Leaders More Likely to Die in Plane Crash Than Receive Federal Prosecution”

By Warren Cole Smith, President of MinistryWatch

OPINION—At a recent meeting of Bible translation organizations in Newport Beach, Calif., one of the speakers stood at the podium and asked the 50 or so leaders there a series of simple questions:  How long does it take to translate the Bible?  And how much does it cost to translate the Bible into a new language?  How many Bible translations have been completed in the past year?  How many will be completed in the coming year?

You’d think these questions would be simple enough to answer.  After all, ask an executive of almost any business on the planet these same questions about his or her business, and that leader will have a ready answer.

But if you ask a leader in the Bible translation industry, the answer you are most likely to get is: “It depends.”  To drive home this point visually, the speaker held up a coffee mug on which he had printed the words “It depends.”  His prop generated some laughter, and a few tight-lipped smiles.

In fairness, that answer – “it depends” — has some truth.  Every project is different.  The people doing the work vary in efficiency and training.  But the same things might be said of virtually every service sector business operating in the world today.  In those industries, it is hard to imagine that “it depends” would long work as an excuse for not knowing or not finding out.

But “it depends” has become part of the culture of the Bible translation industry.  It has helped produce a lack of transparency and accountability that should be a giant red flag to the tens of thousands of donors who give hundreds of millions of dollars to Bible translation organizations every year.

To understand just how big a red flag, we will have to do a little math.

Continue reading “Just How Broken Is the Bible Translation Industry?”

* Have you donated after receiving personalized emails or letters from a televangelist promising to pray for you?

* Has a telemarketer pressured you into donating to a ministry while  claiming that you would receive financial blessing or physical healing if you donate?

* Have you purchased products through a ministry website but never received your order?

Continue reading “Have You Been Defrauded by a Church or Ministry?”

The church and ministry conference business is back with a vengeance with guest speakers often collecting large speaking honorariums. Many religious organizations refuse to disclose the size of honorarium payments, leaving donors and attendees in the dark as to how the money is being spent.

Reciprocal speaking arrangements (you speak at my event and I speak at yours) abound as speakers seek the spotlight.

After hosting a virtual conference last year due to COVID, attendees flocked to televangelist Bill Winston’s International Faith Conference, which was held in September in Forest Park, Illinois.

Guest speakers included televangelists T.D. Jakes and Kenneth Copeland.  Copeland used his Cessna 750.  Eagle Mountain International Church, also known as Kenneth Copeland Ministries, owns two jets: a Cessna 750 and Gulfstream G-V.

In August, Copeland held his Southwest Believers Convention. Creflo Dollar and Bill Winston, guest speakers, flew to Fort Worth for the event on each of their Gulfstream G-IV jets. If the hosts reimburse travel costs, tens of thousands of dollars are spent on ministry jets.

Speaking Fees

How much do guest speakers cost? The Harvard Business Review provides “a rule of thumb for appropriate pricing”:

$500 – $2,500 for new speakers

$5,000 – $10,000 for a first-time author

$10,000 – $20,000 for authors with several books

$20,000 – $35,000 for authors of best sellers

Celebrities and politicians may cost significantly more. In June, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke at the National Religious Broadcasters’ annual convention. According to booking agency All American Entertainment, Pompeo’s speaking fee is between $100,000 to $200,000.

The National Organization of Professional Athletes and Celebrities reports that comedian Chonda Pierce, a popular speaker at Christian events, has a speaking fee range of $20,000 to $30,000 and Tim Tebow’s speaking fee is $50,000 to $100,000. Tebow was Liberty University’s 2021 commencement speaker. Continue reading “Paid to Speak: The Speaking Honorarium Business”