Correction: This headline was corrected on November 9th. Original headline said televangelist Joni Lamb traveled to Trump victory party, which is incorrect. Joni revealed on the TV program MinistryNow that her daughter Rachel Lamb Brown and two son-in-laws traveled to the Trump event.

(Screenshot: Pastor Planes uses ADSB Exchange to track the Daystar jet on Election Day.)

On November 5^th, Word of God Fellowship’s Gulfstream G-V jet (tail number N279PH) flew from Fort Worth Meacham Airport to Palm Beach International Airport.

Word of God Fellowship is the parent organization of Daystar Television Network, America’s second largest religious TV network, headed by Joni Lamb.

Joni’s daughter Rachel Lamb Brown posted Instagram stories from Trump’s victory party.

According to Airport Distance Calculator, the jet traveled at least 971 nautical miles to reach West Palm Beach, Florida. LibertyJet estimates the average cost per mile for a Gulfstream G-V jet flying 200 hours per year is $19.58.

Therefore, the Daystar trip from Texas to Florida and back cost an estimated $38,024. Who paid for this trip? Did Daystar’s board approve the flights as a ministry-related expense or was it considered a personal trip, and Joni reimbursed the cost of the flights?

Continue reading “Daystar Jet Travels to Trump Victory Party”

(Photo: Word of God Fellowship jet parked at Fort Worth Meacham airport.)

In February, an IRS news release announced the government agency would launch dozens of audits of “business aircraft involving personal use.”

United States tax laws treat personal flights on business-owned aircraft as a fringe benefit and require American citizens to pay a tax on these personal flights.

Each year the IRS publishes two updates disclosing the Standard Industry Fare Level (SIFL) tax on personal flights.

(Screenshot: IRS April 15, 2024, Bulletin)

The IRS could audit America’s televangelists that make personal flights on ministry jets.

Since October 2022, the Word of God Fellowship jet has flown to Colorado Springs 28 times and to Destin, Florida, 21 times.

Word of God Fellowship is the parent organization of Daystar Television Network, the world’s second largest religious TV network.

Daystar’s leaders Joni Lamb and Doug Weiss married in 2023, following the death of Joni’s previous husband Marcus Lamb.

The couple travel to a Colorado mountain home and Florida beach condo they own. Weiss also operates a marriage counseling center in Colorado Springs.

Continue reading “Time for an IRS Audit? Estimate: Cost of Personal Flights on Ministry Jet Surpasses $1 million”

Thursday, September 19th is North Texas Giving Day. Fundraising is one of our least favorite activities, but it is necessary to fund our investigations of religious financial fraud. Before asking for any donations, we would like to provide a couple of updates on our investigations.

September 16^th Was Super Busy Day for Ministry Aircraft

Our Pastor Planes Project monitors 66 aircraft, mostly jets, to document and bring transparency to religious non-profit organizations’ travel costs, many of which do not disclose travel expenses to their donors on a Form 990.

September 16^th was one of the busiest days for religious non-profit aircraft. We tracked 17 aircraft in the air. Twenty-five percent of the aircraft we monitor were in use in one day! Many of these religious non-profits could save a large amount of donor money by using commercial aircraft.

(Photo:  Sixteen aircraft flying over North America. Another ministry jet flew from Brazil to South Africa.)

We post daily aircraft tracking maps to Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).

Extravagant Lifestyles

Journalists have barely scratched the surface when it comes to reporting on the accumulation of wealth by religious leaders.

In recent weeks Trinity Foundation has identified several multi-million-dollar houses belonging to daughters of televangelists. We have also discovered African preachers with vacation homes in the United States. Future articles will explore these topics.

Excess Benefit Transactions

The United States tax code currently prohibits excess benefit transactions for officers of non-profit organizations. When a pastor receives an excess benefit through the personal use of church assets, the pastor is required to pay an excise tax to remedy the problem.

While there are loopholes in the law acting as a deterrent to government oversight, Trinity Foundation is researching methods for increasing IRS enforcement to stop these financial abuses.

North Texas Giving Day

To all our donors and everyone reading our newsletters and website: Thank you for your support and encouragement.

We disclose our total revenue and expenses to the IRS on a Form 990EZ and republish this document on our website so that donors have adequate financial information to evaluate our work.

Trinity Foundation currently employs only two investigators. To increase our effectiveness in combatting religious fraud, we would like to raise funding to hire new personnel.

Another investigator could help us research international money laundering. A social media manager could post regular updates to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter while answering questions from the public. A video editor could assist us in making YouTube and TikTok videos about religious abuses.

If you would like to donate or become a member of Trinity Foundation, please visit this link.

(Photo: Doug Weiss appearing on the Daystar TV program Joni Table Talk, Joni Lamb on the right)

Since October 2022, Daystar Television Network’s ministry jet has made 24 round-trip flights from Fort Worth to Colorado Springs and 13 round-trip flights from Fort Worth to Destin, Florida, at an estimated cost of $769,220.

The purpose of the Colorado Springs flights were a mystery until Daystar President Joni Lamb announced her engagement to Colorado Springs psychologist and author Dr. Doug Weiss in March 2023.

The following screenshot shows Daystar’s jet flying to Colorado Springs and returning to Fort Worth two days after Joni’s surprise engagement announcement. Is it appropriate for a church leader to use the ministry jet to visit a fiancé?

If the couple used commercial aircraft rather than the ministry jet for personal flights, they could have saved more than $700,000 on travel expenses.

Continue reading “Using the Ministry Jet for Romance? Daystar’s Joni Lamb Visited Fiancé, Now Husband, and New Condo on Ministry Jet”

(Photo: TBN’s Bombardier Global Express jet in Fort Worth. The letters PC in the tail number refer to the late Paul Crouch Sr. It is a common practice of aircraft owners to use their initials in tail numbers.)

Trinity Foundation’s Pastor Planes project is currently tracking 63 aircraft used by church and ministry leaders, religious broadcasters and Christian universities. Daily tracking maps of the ministry aircraft are posted on Instagram and Twitter.

The number of ministry aircraft in America is likely to continue increasing in 2024. Several televangelists are raising money to purchase aircraft. During a December 31, 2023, New Year’s Eve service, Prophet Passion Java prophesied that he would get a jet.

Two of the newest jets added to the Pastor Planes list are owned by Brazilian-based churches planted in America. Edir Macedo, the wealthiest televangelist in the world, co-founded the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. André Valadão, pastor of Lagoinha Orlando Church, is an Grammy-nominated singer.

Pastors Steven Furtick and Rodney Howard-Browne are not included on this list. Their churches do not own aircraft, but instead utilize charter aircraft.

Continue reading “Pastor Planes Tracking 63 Aircraft”

(Photo: Pixabay)

Joyce Meyer Ministries’ Gulfstream G4 jet flew to Nepal in January for a mission trip celebrating the grand opening of a church building in Attarkhel, Nepal which was funded by its donors.

Hand of Hope, the disaster relief organization and mission outreach of Joyce Meyer Ministries, also funded the drilling of a water well and provided a health clinic for the community.

Hand of Hope operates as an integrated auxiliary of Joyce Meyer Ministries, and for this reason, is not required to file a Form 990 which would disclose salaries and financial information that religious watchdog organizations are interested in reviewing.

During the mission trip the ministry jet accumulated approximately 35.5 flight hours as it circled the globe.

The jet departed on January 14^th from Spirit of Saint Louis Airport and landed in Manchester, England. The first leg of the trip to Nepal took 7 hours and 50 minutes.

(Photo: First travel day)

Continue reading “The Cost of Traveling by Private Jet: Televangelist Jet Circles the Globe”

(Photo: Televangelist Jesse Duplantis and wife Cathy Duplantis exiting his Falcon 900 jet.)

During the Kenneth Copeland Ministries’ 2023 VictoryThon fundraiser, Jesse Duplantis announced his ministry purchased a $21 million Falcon 7X jet. Jesse Duplantis Ministries already owns a Falcon 900 jet.

On the September 20th broadcast Duplantis also told TV viewers that he had previously given away two jets.

According to AviationDB, Jesse Duplantis Ministries has previously owned a Cessna 500, a 1124 Westwind, and a Falcon 50.

The Cessna 500 was transferred to Keith Moore’s Faith Life Church in 2004 but has since been retired from service. The 1124 Westwind was transferred to Mike Mille’s White Dove Fellowship in 2006 and sold again in 2022. The Falcon 50 was transferred to Mac Hammond’s Living Word Christian Center in 2020.

During the same broadcast, Pastor Jerry Savelle joined Duplantis and George Pearsons, senior pastor at Kenneth Copeland Ministries, on stage to  announce his ministry was giving a seed offering of $100,000 while trusting for a Falcon 900 jet:

Savelle said, “I was sowing for the future … but the Lord recently told me. He said, ‘There’s something bigger, better, faster and more range in your future. Well, I know when He talks about future, you sow a seed because seed is about future. So tonight, I brought another seed because I’m believing for a Falcon 900 now… [Savelle hands a check to Pearsons] This is a hundred thousand dollars out of my aviation account.’”

Jerry Savelle Ministries already owns two jets: a Falcon 50 (tail number N920JS) and a Cessna 560 (tail number N229JS).

Forty minutes later the telethon featured healing evangelist Nancy Dufresne telling viewers a series of stories about people allegedly healed while watching her broadcasts.

Almost 10 years ago Edward Dufresne, the husband of Nancy Dufresne, and pastor of World Harvest Church, was killed when his privately-owned Cessna 500 (tail number N610ED) exploded over Kansas. Dufresne’s pilot also died in the incident.

Prosperity Gospel on Display

Word of faith theology, better known as the prosperity gospel, is the ideological foundation for the teaching and preaching featured on Kenneth Copeland’s TV network.

During the telethon, the hosts encouraged their audience to repeat a positive confession. According to Got Questions, “Positive confession is the practice of saying aloud what you want to happen with the expectation that God will make it a reality.”

George Pearsons tells the audience, “Everyone in here say this after me.” Then Pearsons begins the positive confession with Duplantis and the audience repeating each phrase. “In the name of Jesus, I have sown my seed and I believe the 100-fold return is working for me all the time.”

The prosperity gospel has generated incredible wealth for Kenneth Copeland. His daughter Kellie Copeland refers to her dad as she tells the audience, “It doesn’t even make sense that you could be debt-free, give all your money away and have more money and be known as the richest preacher in the world.”

While Kenneth Copeland does appear on some lists as the world’s wealthiest preacher, those lists are incomplete. Brazilian televangelist Edir Macedo is probably the richest preacher in the world. Macedo is head of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and controls the second largest TV network in Brazil.

Postscript

This article would never have been written if it weren’t for a tip. Researcher Susan Puzio contacted Trinity Foundation after watching Duplantis reported obtaining a new jet.

If you have inside information on fraud or financial abuses in a church or ministry, please submit a tip. Trinity Foundation has a long history of protecting confidential informants.

 

(Photo: Trinity Broadcasting Network’s Bombardier Global Express)

Twice per year the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) updates the tax rate charged on “non-commercial flights on employer-provided aircraft” which includes personal flights taken on ministry aircraft.

The latest tax update was announced in the April 10, 2023 edition of the Internal Revenue Bulletin and covers personal flights taken between January 1, 2023 and June 30, 2023.

The tax is comprised of a terminal charge of $52.35 along with an additional tax based on miles of the trip known as Standard Industry Fare Level (SIFL).

SIFL Mileage Rates for the first six months of 2023:

Up to 500 miles = $0.2864 per mile
501-1500 miles = $0.2183 per mile
Over 1500 miles = $0.2099 per mile

Only a handful of televangelists disclose their use of private jets on the IRS Form 990, a financial disclosure document which reveals total revenue, total expenses, and compensation of executives. However, most TV preachers claim a church exemption from this disclosure.  This fringe benefit would need to be reported on the televangelist’s personal income tax form 1040 each year.

Schedule J includes a box to checkmark for the use of first-class or charter travel.

(Photo: Trinity Broadcasting Network jet at Fort Worth Alliance airport.)

(Correction: The headline has been changed from “Trinity Broadcasting Network Jet’s Value Drops $20 Million in Three Years” to “Trinity Broadcasting Network Jet Depreciates $20 Million in Three Years.” Also, a paragraph has been added providing an IRS definition for depreciation.)

IRS form 990s and audited financial statements prove that churches and ministries waste millions of dollars annually by purchasing business-class jets.

In 2017, Trinity Broadcasting of Florida (TBF), a non-profit affiliate of Trinity Broadcasting Network, replaced its older Bombardier Global Express jet with a newer 2010 model. On its 2017 form 990, TBF reported $8,814,590 in depreciation but did not disclose how much of the depreciation was for aircraft.

For 2018, TBF reported $6,780,942 in airplane depreciation expense. For 2019, TBF reported total $6,846,838 in total airplane depreciation and $6,929,106 for 2020.

In three years the TBF jet depreciated by $20,556,886.

Depreciation totals are not available for 2021 or 2022 as 990s for these years are not yet available.

According to the IRS, “Depreciation is an annual income tax deduction that allows you to recover the cost or other basis of certain property over the time you use the property. It is an allowance for the wear and tear, deterioration, or obsolescence of the property.”

Organizations with lower-priced aircraft also report large losses for aircraft. LIFE Outreach International, the ministry led by James Robison, is the parent organization of Zoe Aviation which owns a Cessna 560XL jet manufactured in 2000.

Zoe Aviation had net operating losses of $782,292 in 2021 and $745,207 in 2020.