Alameda county is the East Bay county in the San Francisco Bay Area. It stretches from Oakland to Fremont. As with any residential place in America there are churches. There are over 180 churches in Alameda County. The church that I pastor has been in this county since 1946 and has been a tax-exempt church the entire time.
In 2010, Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS began threatening churches in Alameda County and all over the US. I received phone calls and letters from the IRS telling me that we were a political organization, and therefore not tax exempt. In 2011, agents of the IRS showed up at my church to inspect, take pictures and measure the sanctuary . Also in 2010 Alameda Country declared Cornerstone Fellowship a for-profit business and therefore we owed property tax.
Going back to the founding of this nation certain benefits were afforded churches and full time ministers. One benefit is that churches do not property tax. If they did, it has been stated, people who do not like churches can rezone or assess the improvements and put churches out of business with huge tax bills.
Every year since 2010 we receive a property tax bill of $8,000. We are told by the county that we have committed tax fraud and therefore owe 8 years of tax as a penalty, or $64,000. We cannot afford that, and most churches in California cannot afford to pay their property tax. The buildings are large and improvements are many, so tax on most church properties would be huge.
So every year I start a series of phone calls. The people who answer the phone at the county transfer me around and talk over me, interrupt me and blame me for not doing things right. They are rude. Every October for the past 7 years, I have spent 30-50 hours on the phone trying to work this out. I fill out forms, and affidavits. One year we even hired a lawyer to try and stop this cycle, but it did not do any good. Policy drones only care about the letter of the policy and not the spirit of the law. They also don’t care about history. So, I dot every i and cross every t and somewhere around December or January, they cancel the tax bill.
Lois Lerner and the anti-church Obama-whitehouse is gone, but the anti-church deep state remains, even in Alameda county, California. They will do whatever they can to get tax money out of church land, even if it means shutting down churches.
God is in control and this is some sort of test for me and my church. Our church prays about this every year and I make this as public as I can to let the world know of the corruption going on here. I know for a fact that in 2-3 months, after 100 or more phone calls and letters and forms, they will cancel the tax bill, blame me and we repeat this dance next year.
In 2010, Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS began threatening churches in Alameda County and all over the US. I received phone calls and letters from the IRS telling me that we were a political organization, and therefore not tax exempt. In 2011, agents of the IRS showed up at my church to inspect, take pictures and measure the sanctuary . Also in 2010 Alameda Country declared Cornerstone Fellowship a for-profit business and therefore we owed property tax.
Going back to the founding of this nation certain benefits were afforded churches and full time ministers. One benefit is that churches do not property tax. If they did, it has been stated, people who do not like churches can rezone or assess the improvements and put churches out of business with huge tax bills.
Every year since 2010 we receive a property tax bill of $8,000. We are told by the county that we have committed tax fraud and therefore owe 8 years of tax as a penalty, or $64,000. We cannot afford that, and most churches in California cannot afford to pay their property tax. The buildings are large and improvements are many, so tax on most church properties would be huge.So every year I start a series of phone calls. The people who answer the phone at the county transfer me around and talk over me, interrupt me and blame me for not doing things right. They are rude. Every October for the past 7 years, I have spent 30-50 hours on the phone trying to work this out. I fill out forms, and affidavits. One year we even hired a lawyer to try and stop this cycle, but it did not do any good. Policy drones only care about the letter of the policy and not the spirit of the law. They also don’t care about history. So, I dot every i and cross every t and somewhere around December or January, they cancel the tax bill.
Lois Lerner and the anti-church Obama-whitehouse is gone, but the anti-church deep state remains, even in Alameda county, California. They will do whatever they can to get tax money out of church land, even if it means shutting down churches.
God is in control and this is some sort of test for me and my church. Our church prays about this every year and I make this as public as I can to let the world know of the corruption going on here. I know for a fact that in 2-3 months, after 100 or more phone calls and letters and forms, they will cancel the tax bill, blame me and we repeat this dance next year.
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