Is it time to tax churches?

January 17th, 2011, 3:00 am
Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

We told you last week that Dana Point televangelist Benny Hinn Ministries hauled in $97.93 million in a single year. And Kenneth Copeland hauled in $100 million. And Joyce Meyer Ministries (JMM) hauled in $112 million. And they’re just a drop in the vast televangelist bucket.

Those rather stunning figures were furnished in response to a probe by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, who wanted to know if these ministries improperly used their tax-exempt status to finance lavish lifestyles. He found that many of the churches had “multiple for-profit and non-profit entitiesâ€