NPR yesterday published a lengthy investigative report on the lack of financial transparency of television evangelists because the Internal Revenue Service is willing to categorize many of them as churches rather than non-profit religious organizations. Churches are not required to file Form 990 that provides annual disclosure of finances. The report focuses particularly on Daystar Television, one of the three largest religious television networks. Illustrating financial concerns that might be revealed if televangelists had to file Form 990, the report said in part:
Daystar's primary revenue comes from selling airtime to other religious programmers. Its secondary income is donations.... [B]etween 2005 and 2011, Daystar took in $208 million in tax-deductable contributions from viewers through on-air pitches. Daystar has built a public image as a generous giver to charitable causes. Indeed, the network has contributed millions of dollars to a trauma center and a home for Holocaust survivors in Israel, a hospital in Calcutta, and to ministries that support women in Moldova and children in Uganda....
NPR analyzed six years of Daystar balance sheets. They show the network gave away $9.7 million dollars in direct grants to outside recipients. Not $30 million [which its founder has claimed]. That works out to charitable giving of about 5 percent of donor revenue.
