In the segment, comedian and host John Oliver blasted televangelists who “seed faith”, which essentially means televangelists manipulate their religious followers into donating money to televangelist leaders and their megachurches. Kenneth Copeland, for instance, has a .5 million jet and a million church owned lakefront mansion.
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“That’s not a sermon, that’s the first draft of a Rick Ross single”, Oliver quipped about Murdock.
The website for Oliver’s church is accepting donations, which reportedly will go to Doctors Without Borders. “Since that happened, anybody can call themselves a church”, Anthony said. The tax code written for churches is purposely vague.
“A few years ago, the IRS named Scientology a church”.
For example, the IRS recommends that a church have “an established place of worship”. Oliver also registered “Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption” as a nonprofit corporation in Texas, even though he has never lived in the state.
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Thanks to the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver has prompted new pressure on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to crack down on fraudulent televangelists, reported CBS News. What’s worse, these coerced donations are tax free.
