Pastor Gus Booth of the Warroad Community Church has been telling his congregation that they shouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama because they support abortion.  That preaching has landed Booth in a showdown with the IRS.  On purpose, as it turns out, because Booth not only invited the media in to hear his tax-law-offending sermon he also sent a copy of it to the IRS itself.

You see, under the law churches don’t pay taxes, but in order to keep that tax-exempt status they can’t engage in political activities.  That includes political speeches from the pulpit.

I’ve got two reactions to this.  First, it’s curious that the IRS is taking Booth’s bait but hasn’t yet gone after Barack Obama’s church which seems to feature politically-charged sermons every Sunday.

Second, while I am a staunch supporter of political speech, I’m not entirely sure I’m in Booth’s corner on this one.  Mostly because the big obstacle to Booth’s political sermons under the law is the fact that his church doesn’t pay any taxes.  Presumably, if Booth and his church council would agree to it, the church could start paying taxes and Booth could say whatever he wants from the pulpit.

I have a rather hard time feeling sorry for someone’s inability to fully exercise their free speech when the only obstacle to that person’s free speech is their rather lucrative special status under the tax code.

Personally, I don’t really like that churches don’t pay taxes.  I really don’t like seeing any exemptions in the tax code.  I think America would be a much nicer place if our federal and state tax codes were simplified to just a few streams of revenue (consumption and use taxes being the preferred methods) with no exceptions made for anyone.

That would be fairness.  That would be equality.  But if we had that then the powers that be couldn’t use the tax code to manipulate our behavior (sin/excise taxes) and pander to special interest groups (deductions, tax exemptions, etc.).

Make no doubt about it: The tax code is one of the government’s biggest and baddest tools when it comes to controlling our lives.