The IRS recently revoked the tax-exempt status of Saved in America Incorporated, a non-profit organization in California, with the stated purpose of fighting human tracking.
The announcement appeared in the November 18, 2024, issue of the IRS Bulletin, a weekly publication providing important tax updates for accountants and taxpayers.
(Photo: The revocation for Saved in America Incorporated covers financial transactions for six years.)
The above screenshot features all the public information that is available from the IRS regarding this revocation of tax-exempt status. The IRS does not reveal what illegal activity it uncovered during an audit or investigation.
The IRS process for granting tax-exemptions is transparent, but the process for revoking tax-exemptions is cloaked in secrecy.
After a non-profit organization applies for tax-exemption, the IRS sends the organization a determination letter which reports if the exemption was granted or denied. The determination letter will also state if a tax-exempt organization is required to file a Form 990 disclosing spending, compensation and other important financial data to the IRS.
The IRS publishes determination letters on its website which can be found with the Tax-Exempt Organization Search.
When the IRS revokes a non-profit organization’s tax-exempt status, it sends the organization a secret revocation letter. These letters are not published on the IRS website and cannot be obtained by FOIA requests.
Why Are Revocation Letters a Secret?
In 2015, the IRS revoked the tax-exempt status of World Religious Relief, the parent organization of The Word Network, a religious TV network, that broadcasts the worst prosperity gospel preachers on the planet.
When the IRS launched an audit, Kevin Adell, created a pseudo-church to run the network.
The Word Network currently broadcasts sermons of Tony Alamo, a deceased pastor that received a 175-year prison sentence after being convicted of ten counts of child sex exploitation.
World Religious Relief’s president Kevin Adell enriched himself by setting a up companies to handle the broadcasting for his non-profit network, and then paid himself $15 million in three years from this business arrangement, which is known as self-dealing.
The 2015 IRS revocation letter may have required Adell to pay an excise tax penalty on self-dealing.
But the general donating public will never know because information about personal income taxes is protected from release by the 1974 Privacy Act.
Complicating Investigations by Making Evidence Unobtainable
Trinity Foundation is investigating a number of religious non-profit organizations for money laundering.
Banks report customers to the government for cash transactions of $10,000 or more by submitting Suspicious Activity Reports (SARS) to the United States Treasury Department.
Large cash transactions are often a clue for money laundering and other financial crimes. However, SARS are kept secret by the Bank Secrecy Act.
This withholding of evidence from investigative reporters and the public completely stifles investigations.
Sometimes critical information is redacted when government agencies do release documents.
The following photo comes from a document obtained from the FBI after submitting a FOIA request. The Supervisory Special Agent’s name is withheld. The codes appearing in the right margin indicate why information is redacted.
Publicly available information in which there should be no reasonable expectation of privacy also gets redacted by the FBI. In the following photo names of officers of non-profit organizations, which are made public on Secretary of State websites, are redacted by the FBI.
How Would This Lack of Transparency Be Solved?
There is a political solution to this problem. Congress may amend the 1974 Privacy Act to allow for the release of additional information in the public interest.