The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) -- the atheist group that has carved out a niche in the legal domain by suing school districts and municipalities for supposedly violating the First Amendment -- has turned its harassment on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for giving churches and religious organizations "preferential treatment" in filing for and maintaining their tax-exempt privileges, the New American website reports today (January 3, 2013).
On December 27, the FFRF -- which claims to have some 19,000 "nonreligious" members nationwide -- filed suit in a western Wisconsin U.S. District Court, complaining that while the IRS requires non-church tax-exempt groups like itself to file "detailed, intrusive, and expensive annual reports to maintain tax-exempt status... such reports are not required for churches and certain other affiliated religious organizations."
An aggrieved FFRF spokeswoman, Annie Laurie Gaylor, wondered: "Why should churches be exempt from basic financial reporting requirements?"
The atheist group said that it is asking the court to "find the church exemptions a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and the equal protection rights of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."
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