*Satire alert*

“Prince Andrew hugely relieved to be kept out of grooming gang inquiry”

by Laura And Normal Island News on Substack

“The inquiry will focus on whether police failed to investigate brown paedophiles to protect community cohesion. It will not, however, focus on whether police failed to investigate royalty, and it certainly won’t mention that most child abusers are white”

https://open.substack.com/pub/normalislandnews/p/prince-andrew-hugely-relieved-to

#Press #UK #Britain #Grooming #Gang #White #Paedophiles #Exempt #Inquiry #Andrew

#exempt vs. #NonExempt employees. Do you really know the difference?

I'll be honest - it's tricky.

And getting it wrong could have major consequences for your #business. We're talking thousands of dollars worth of fines and missed wages.

Your best bet to avoid all this trouble? Check out my article for Forbes Advisor that explains the difference. Don't worry, it's not just me rambling - I got insights from a host of legal and HR experts, too.

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/exempt-vs-non-exempt-employees/

»tax-exempt meal allowances«
Hmm. Yesterday, a colleague and i had to check whether it should be »tax-excempt«.
No.

But we wouldn’t have been the first to write »excempt«. Wiktionary has two – admittedly 19th century – examples.

We were probably thinking »except«

#English #spelling #exempt #excempt #language #englishLanguage

Churches are breaking the law and endorsing in elections
-- The IRS looks the other way.

For nearly 70 years, federal law has barred churches from directly involving themselves in political campaigns,
but the IRS has largely abdicated its enforcement responsibilities as churches have become more brazen about publicly backing candidates.

Six days before a local runoff election last year in Frisco, a prosperous and growing suburb of Dallas,
Brandon Burden paced the stage of KingdomLife Church.

The pastor told congregants that demonic spirits were operating through members of the City Council.

Grasping his Bible with both hands,
Burden said God was working through his North Texas congregation to take the country back to its Christian roots.

He lamented that he lacked jurisdiction over the state Capitol,
where he had gone during the 2021 Texas legislative session to lobby for conservative priorities like expanded gun rights and a ban on abortion.

“But you know what I got jurisdiction over this morning is an election coming up on Saturday,” Burden told parishioners.

“I got a candidate that God wants to win. I got a mayor that God wants to unseat. God wants to undo. God wants to shift the balance of power in our city. And I have jurisdiction over that this morning.”

What Burden said that day in May 2021 was a violation of a long-standing federal law barring churches and nonprofits from directly or indirectly participating in political campaigns, tax law experts told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.

Although the provision was mostly uncontroversial for decades after it passed in 1954, it has become a target for both evangelical churches and former President Donald Trump, who vowed to eliminate it.

Burden’s sermon is among those at 18 churches identified by the news organizations over the past two years that appeared to violate the #Johnson #Amendment, a measure named after its author, former President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Some pastors have gone so far as to paint candidates they oppose as demonic.

At one point, churches fretted over losing their #tax-#exempt #status for even unintentional missteps.

But the IRS has largely abdicated its enforcement responsibilities as churches have become more brazen.

In fact, the number of apparent violations found by ProPublica and the Tribune,
and confirmed by three nonprofit tax law experts,
is greater than the total number of churches the federal agency has investigated for intervening in political campaigns over the past decade, according to records obtained by the news organizations.

In response to questions, an IRS spokesperson said that the agency “cannot comment on, neither confirm nor deny, investigations in progress, completed in the past nor contemplated.”

Asked about enforcement efforts over the past decade, the IRS pointed the news organizations to annual reports that do not contain such information.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/30/johnson-amendment-elections-irs/