Amish at the ABA Tax Section Meeting
On Friday, I was at the ABA Tax Section meeting in San Francisco. Patrick Thomas had invited me to speak on a panel entitled “The IRS Violated My Client’s Religious Liberties: When is This Unlawful and...
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The Salt Lake Tribune is Officially a Public Charity!
Photo by Cool Hand Luke [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia CommonsThis morning, the Salt Lake Tribune announced that the IRS had granted it tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) public charity.[fn1] And, while...
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The Evils of the Dole: What Is This “Dole” Thing, Anyway?
Last week, Kristine A wrote an excellent post from last week, highlighting the BYU-I Medicaid omnishambles. In the post, she mentioned that one rumored reason for the policy was to get students “off...
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Utah’s New Tax Bill
Sales Tax by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images If your Twitter feed is anything like mine, you’ve probably heard by now that the Utah legislature passed a tax bill last week in a special...
View Article$100 Billion?!? (A Placeholder)
Hey all, I assume by now you’ve all seen the Washington Post story about the tax whistleblower. If your Twitter is anything at all like mine, your mentions have simply exploded over the last hour or...
View ArticleSome Thoughts About Ensign Peak Advisers and the Church
The Washington Post story raises (at least) three important questions. I’m going to try to address all three here (though at least one will be really quick), and I suspect that this post will be...
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So You Have $100 Billion.
Photo by Fabian Blank on Unsplash There has been a lot of talk over the last couple weeks (interrupted, of course, for impeachment and Christmas) about the church’s $100 billion endowment. And I want...
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NonBelief Relief and Church Financial Disclosure
Photo by Sebastian Pichler on Unsplash As we’re all very aware, questions of financial transparency have recently become tremendously salient to the church and its members. There are, of course, ways...
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Traditions of Their [Mothers]: Girls Should Be Passing the Sacrament
A little over two years ago, I wrote a post explaining that our current rule that only priesthood holders can pass the sacrament has no basis in scripture. D&C 20:58 explicitly says that teachers...
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Coronavirus and the Sacrament
A few weeks ago, my daughter and I were out of state at a climbing competition, and an old high school friend was kind enough to let us stay with her and her family. My friend is a Presbyterian pastor,...
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Did You Know Parsonages Are Taxable in Utah?
Churches & Parsonage, Antrim, N.H. From the New York Public Library. Public domain. This week is my week to blog over at the Nonprofit Law Prof Blog. And for today’s post, I did some absolutely...
View ArticleHandholding At BYU: Just For Temple Marriage?
CES just issued a letter attempting to clarify its removal of the Honor Code section entitled “Homosexual Behavior.” To further clarify BYU’s position, its Honor Code office posted a Q&A, which...
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Shelter-In-Place and the Sacrament
CDC/Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAMS. Public domain. Just over a week ago, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve announced that the church was (temporarily) suspending meetings...
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On (Not) Blogging Through a Pandemic
Photo by CDC on Unsplash Monday starts my family’s fifth week of staying home (and fourth week under a formal stay-at-home order). Other than daily walks and occasional (rare) trips to the store to...
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Excluding Our Fellow Saints From the Sacrament
In Illinois, we’re now halfway through our sixth week under a stay-at-home order (and my family’s seventh week at home). And the stay-at-home order looks like it’s going to last at least another month...
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Sheep and Goats in a Pandemic
Sheep and goats in corrals. The Field Museum Library. No know copyright restrictions. Yesterday my family and I took a bike ride to downtown Chicago. (Under Illinois’s stay-at-home order, biking for...
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“done in cleanliness”
Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay Over the last couple weeks, a number of family and friends have renewed their temple recommends over Zoom. You may remember that about a year ago (in the...
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Review: 1st Nephi: a brief theological introduction
Joseph Spencer, 1st Nephi: a brief theological introduction (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2020) If you’re anything like me, you can relate the story of 1st Nephi in your sleep. Lehi, a goodly...
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Justice for George Floyd [Updated 6-1-20]
Photo by Fibonacci Blue. CC BY 2.0 I’m sure that you, like me, have seen the shocking murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. That you are aware that this isn’t the first time, the...
View Article#JusticeForGeorgeFloyd Revisited
A little more than a week ago, I posted some religious leaders’ reactions to the murder of George Floyd. While the church hadn’t responded when I posted, it responded shortly thereafter, and I update...
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