article_snippet: Gulfstream G650 airplane is the latest chapter in a long and sordid history of televangelists exploiting their churches' tax-exempt status -- and their churches' congregants -- to line their churches' own pockets.
article_snippet: World Changers Church International, Televangelist Creflo Dollar's 30,000-member church, is a tax-exempt organization under the Internal Revenue Code.
article_snippet: That means the church's donors receive a tax exemption for the church's donors donations (including for Televangelist Creflo Dollar's new jet ambitions), and the church pays no tax on the revenue.
article_snippet: What's more, because it is organized as a church, the federal government does not require World Changers to file a publicly available tax return, as other nonprofit organizations are required to do.
article_snippet: Those tax returns provide at least some financial information to donors and the public about the organization, including the federal government revenues, assets, expenditures and executive compensation.
article_snippet: While the government cannot constitutionally mediate theological disputes or otherwise interfere in a church's internal affairs, the government can use the government oversight powers to ensure that preachers who use preachers who use their pulpits for profit pulpits for profit don't exploit the tax advantages afforded to ordinary houses of worship to pursue ordinary houses of worship legitimate charitable purposes.
article_snippet: the Senate Finance Committee requested documents from Dollar and his wife, Taffi, explaining that taxpayers "should be assured that taxpayers donations are being used for the tax exempt purposes of the organizations.
article_snippet: The documents sought by the Senate Finance Committee included audited financial statements for World Changers, information about related for-profit and nonprofit entities, and data on executive compensation and the church's real and personal assets.
article_snippet: the Senate Finance Committee concluded that in 2006, World Changers had received $69 million in contributions at World Changers Atlanta church alone, that the Dollars owned two multimillion-dollar homes in Georgia, and that the church and related business entities had at various points owned four aircraft flown for personal use -- although none was nearly as pricey as the luxury Dollar now seeks to acquire.
article_snippet: the committee staff was clearly troubled by the array of business entities, "including private airports and aircraft leasing companies," that raised red flags "about the use of its Atlanta church alone's tax-exempt status to avoid taxation.
highlights_snippet: Televangelist Creflo Dollar says government should oversee tax-exempt churches that essentially operate as for-profit enterprises .
  