Fraud Thriving In U.S. Churches, But You Wouldn't Know It
Forbes article from Nov. of last year. For anyone contemplating a life of crime - go to work for a church! There's a good chance you'll never get caught. And even if caught, you might not do any time. OTOH, if you report crime in your church, you may get fired or otherwise punished yourself.
Sizemore told me, “The reason you did not see any churches on the list is because churches are not required to do an annual report.”
"What?!”
Sizemore pointed me to a line in the tax code: ““Every organization exempt from federal income tax under IRS 501(a) must file an annual information return except: 1) A church …. “
“In Alabama,” Sizemore said, “fraud within churches is a major problem.” With so little reporting and transparency, one can see why...
Well of course those ignorant Fundamentalist Assholes in Alabama don't know anything about accounting! This probably doesn't happen to older, more established, non-Fundamentalist churches in the Great Lib'rul North...
There were three separate cases of Catholic priests in Connecticut who got prison time for drug trafficking, obstruction of justice and embezzlement. However, even when these types of frauds are reported, there are pressures to keep them private. Take the case of Catholic priest Rev. Michael Jude Fay who pled guilty to stealing $1.3 million from congregation collections in Darien, CT. According to a New York Times article, a bookkeeper and an assistant pastor at St. John’s Church discovered the theft and showed their findings to the Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport but nothing happened. The two then took matters into their own hands, hired a private investigator and took their case to authorities. While Fay would go on to be sentenced to 37 months in prison, the duo that reported the fraud quit their jobs at the church under pressure from diocese officials for alerting outsiders to the problems.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2013/11/18/fraud-thriving-in-u-s-churches-but-you-wouldnt-know-it/
Website mentioned in the article, devoted to fraud in churches and synagogues:
http://blog.congregationalsecurityinc.com/tag/embezzlement/#.UoUGgI2E554