Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is one of the top 10 Volags selected each year by the US State Department to resettle refugees. Yesterday I wanted to have a look at their Federal Form 990 tax return. That’s the form that all non-profit groups have to file with the IRS. But, guess what? Churches are exempt and this volag has filed as a church, so no Form 990 is required.
Now, here is the funny part (not!) according to its own Financial report it is primarily funded by you–the taxpayer. Its income side of the ledger for 2006 was $20,925,000 with $18,678,000 coming from the US Government—that is a whopping 89.3% of their budget.
They receive $810,000 from churches (3.9%) and yet they can file as a church. When you can’t see a Form 990, you can’t see how the money is spent—how much is going to salaries for instance?
If I were at another of the Top 10 volags, like Church World Service which does a Form 990 even though a larger percentage of its funds come from private people and churches, I’d be a little annoyed. But, I suspect those Top 10’ers protect each other.
Where is the ACLU when you need them, shouldn’t this be a separation of church and state issue?
P.S. When you look at the financial statement, the loan servicing fees are also government funds involved with refugee travel loans.