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Originally Posted by 2 Tim 4:2  The church in Indiana refused to pay payroll taxes. That is an entirely different issue from being tax exempt. Patroll taxes are never exempt. Again no church has ever lost its tax exempt status. |
That's not true Pastor, they paid all of their payroll taxes. They were never delinquent nor did they refuse to pay them, what they did was dissolve their corporation, and stopped being an employer. An employer is a federal tax status. The ministers were then independent contractors of the Church which paid their taxes on an individual level. Several years later the IRS comes back and says the Church owes them the employer portion of the payroll taxes all those years, which were paid by the individuals in their personal tax status. There was absolutely no discrepancy in the amount of tax the government was due. The legal dominions claimed by the State over the Church is where the argument is - not the taxes.
The Federal government refused to recognize the Church, once reorganized, as an independent jurisdiction and utilized the matter just to flex it's muscle and make an example out of Christians that asserted Christ alone was Lord of the Church. They obtained millions of dollars in property on tax penalties imposed upon taxes paid, just not in recognition of the State as sovereign over the Church.
A free Church has no EIN and is not an employer. There are thousands upon thousands of people in this country that change their tax status and no longer maintain the master/servant relationship with the Federal government and thereby no longer are liable for income taxes - and the IRS leaves them alone. It's the people that are liable that claim they are not that are "tax protestors" because they are legally taxpayers and owe tribute. But one is not required to maintain that status, one can legally become a non-taxpayer and not owe tribute. This isn't that hard to understand.