IRS Questions Church's Activities
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By Brent D. Wistrom and Joe Rodriguez, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.  Jun. 1--The IRS has contacted a Wichita church about whether it has violated rules that prohibit churches from engaging in most political activity, the church's pastor said Thursday.
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By Reid Magney, La Crosse Tribune, Wis.  Sep. 5--A couple times in this space I've wondered aloud why La Crosse doesn't have a taxpayer watchdog group if taxes are really as high as people say.   Well, ask and ye shall receive.
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By Avrum D. Lank, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  Sep. 17--If you hear from the Internal Revenue Service, it is prudent to respond -- unless, that is, the first contact is by e-mail.
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MEMBERS of a church are to debate the ethics of running raffles and tombolas at church fetes.   Some members of the United Reformed Church in Kelvedon, Essex, think that encouraging gambling sends out the wrong message.  (c) 2007 Evening Mail; Birmingham (UK).
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Roman Catholic Church officials asked for an investigation Thursday of two U.S. lawyers and an activist they claim are trying to extort money from the Mexican church with a lawsuit alleging Cardinal Norberto Rivera protected a pedophile priest.
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By Scott Mayerowitz, The Providence Journal, R.I.  Feb. 7--PROVIDENCE -- The state's top nonprofit organizations yesterday  made their case as to why they think a law is needed to clarify that donations  by out-of-state residents can't be used by the state to determine residency  here.
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Â·  Church landlords accused of speculative frenzy Â·  Conduct 'not in line' with papal stance on housing
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By KELLI KENNEDY  LADY LAKE, Fla. - Though Elden Jefferson's concrete block home had suffered roof and wall damage that needed his attention, he and his wife felt the need to go to church - what was left of it.
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The IRS continues to have &quot;pervasive&quot; information security weaknesses that put taxpayer information at risk, and it has made limited progress in fixing dozens of problems the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)&#160;has previously identified, according to a GAO report released Tuesday.The IRS, the tax-collecting arm of the U.S. government, has &quot;persistent information security weaknesses that place [it] at risk of disruption, fraud or inappropriate disclosure of sensitive information,&quot; the GAO report said. The agency, which collected about $2.7 trillion in taxes in 2007, has fixed just 29 of 98 information security weaknesses identified in a report released last March, the new report said.&quot;Information security weaknesses -- both old and new -- continue to impair the agency&#39;s ability to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of financial and taxpayer information,&quot; the GAO report said. &quot;These deficiencies represent a material weakness in IRS&#39;s internal controls over its financial and tax processing systems.&quot;The GAO has issued multiple reports blasting IRS information security in recent years.The latest report described an IRS data center that took more than four months to install critical patches to server software.At one IRS data center, about 60 employees had access to commands that would allow them to make &quot;significant&quot; changes to the operating system, the GAO said. At two data centers, administrator access to a key application contained unencrypted data log-ins, potentially revealing users&#39; names and passwords.Three IRS sites visited by GAO auditors had computers or servers with poor password controls, the GAO said. Inactive user accounts were not deleted within six months, in violation of IRS policy, and some user passwords on Unix systems did not meet length or complexity requirements.The IRS also had lax physical security controls in place for protecting IT facilities, the GAO report said. One data center allowed at least 17 workers access to sensitive areas when their jobs didn&#39;t require it, the GAO said. That same center did not always remove physical access authorizations from workers who no longer needed it. In March, that data center had identified 54 employees who no longer needed access, but in June, 29 of those employees still had access to the sensitive areas.Linda Stiff, the IRS acting commissioner, said the agency made significant progress in fixing information security problems during 2007. The agency completed security testing on 260 applications and systems, installed disk encryption software on all of its 52,000 laptop computers and implemented data encryption for mainframe tapes, she wrote in a letter to the GAO.A U.S. Department of Treasure audit, released in March, found that between January 2003, and June 2006, nearly 500 IRS laptops were stolen from employees.In 2007, the IRS issued cable locks to all employees with laptops, implemented two-factor authentication for remote access to IRS networks, and put in place an antivirus Internet gateway system, Stiff&#39;s letter to the GAO said.&quot;While we agree that we have not yet fully implemented critical elements of our agency-wide information security program, the security and privacy of taxpayer information is of great concern to the IRS,&quot; Stiff wrote. &quot;We recognize that there is significant work to be accomplished to address our information security deficiencies, and we are taking aggressive steps to correct previously reported weaknesses and improve our overall information security program.&quot;An IRS spokeswoman said the agency would not comment beyond Stiff&#39;s letter.
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The charitable world is about to get a taste of the type of scrutiny over pay and governance that has become typical in corporate America -- courtesy of the Internal Revenue Service.
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Two congregations are to announce whether they will leave the US Anglican Church in a row over gay clergy.
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The Supreme Court wrestled Wednesday with the question of whether taxpayers have the right to challenge the White House's aggressive promotion of federal financial aid for religious charities.
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A strategy executives use to turn their stockholdings into cash while delaying payment of taxes is coming under increased scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service.
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Michelle Singletary hosts a discussion with tax attorney Scott M. Estill, author of "Tax This! An Insider's Guide to Standing Up to the IRS."
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About 60 charities, churches and other tax-exempt groups are being investigated for potentially breaking federal rules that bar them from participating in political activity, the Internal Revenue Service said Friday.
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Experts are concerned that data may not being properly protected by the IRS and that a massive data loss by the agency, similar to the one last month by the U.K.'s Revenue and Customs office, could disrupt the nation's banking system.
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The Supreme Court, for the first time under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., confronted yesterday the devilishly complicated issue of church-state separation, and whether ordinary taxpayers have the right to sue over the Bush administration's embrace of faith-based organizations.