Mac Hammond IRS Investigation

Wow, I didn't know that being a preacher could be so lucrative. I wish I could "donate" back 2.5 million dollars to the church that paid me with donations from people who probably thought their donations were going to help the needy. Suckers!

Mac Hammond inspires his congregation with the "prosperity gospel," a version of the good news in which following Christ leads to material wealth. With 9,000 members as of last year, a Bible college, elementary and high schools, a drug-treatment clinic, and a television audience reached through KARE-11, Living Word seems showered in God-given riches. The church bulletin proclaims a weekly operating income need of $319,822—or $16.6 million a year. Hammond, too, is a poster boy for his message. Though churches are not required to report the earnings of their pastors to the public, Hammond has garnered enough to donate almost $2.5 million back to his church.

But recently, the very prosperity Hammond preaches has gotten him into a sticky situation with the Internal Revenue Service. Living Word and the taxman are in the midst of a federal court battle over the church's refusal to comply with an IRS tax summons. The government wants to know the details of an arrangement in which the church helped Hammond finance an airplane, then leased it from him and paid the fees to keep it in a hangar. The IRS also wants information on loans Living Word made to Hammond—including helping to pay for his residence—which the church partially forgave.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a D.C.-based watchdog group, filed two complaints with the IRS about Living Word. One was over these financial arrangements; the other came after Hammond invited Michele Bachmann to the church in 2006 and proclaimed that he would vote for her.