In the 1990's, a man became angry with me and turned my name into the IRS (tax investigators) to try to get me audited and harmed by IRS. (Internal Revenue Service in USA collects taxes in USA.)
I was notified I was being audited.
(Personal audit, not ministry, for IRS agent said IRS does not audit tax exempt ministries nor churches)
I only took a very small salary at that time and everything I took was reported on the 1040 tax forms required by IRS, so I really didn't see how this could harm me.
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The two IRS agents came to my house. When I opened the door, the agent said the name of a man, asking to see him at my house ... It was the man who had been angry with me.
I replied, "No ... I'm Joan Boney."
The agent was very embarrassed.
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I invited the 2 agents into the house.
I told them they were welcome to take all my cancelled bank checks for both the ministry and for me personally.
They were shocked!
Apparently people did not hand over their cancelled checks to IRS this way.
But I didn't care. If I had done anything wrong, it was a mistake and I would correct it by paying the fee and appropriate fines to IRS.
I talked with the agents, gave them the bookkeeping and the checks and they left.
After their audit, I went to the IRS building to receive their finding.
I asked if they found anything wrong.
They said they did not.
One agent asked me a question. He said he noticed the ministry did not pay social security taxes for me. These are paid by the employer, which in my case would be the ministry.
I explained that when the ministry was first set up with IRS (in 1979), we had an option concerning social security.
I could sign "a vow of poverty" with IRS and the ministry would be exempt from paying social security taxes for me.
The man who set up our legal papers in 1979, was a former IRS agent and he advised me not to sign this vow of poverty, for he said if I signed this, we could never go back and receive social security payment for me.
Neither would I ever be able to have Medicare, medical provision from the US government.
I was young at the time and didn't foresee illnesses.
And the ministry at that time, 1979, could not afford to pay social security taxes for me. We had no income when we started out.
So I signed the IRS "vow of poverty."
The agent said there was no record of such a vow being filed with IRS so if I would like to buy-back into social security I could do so for $8000.
At the time of this audit (1990's), the ministry was well established and we had plenty of money to pay social security taxes so I wrote out a check for this immediately and gave it to the agent.
This turned out to be very important. A decade later I fell over a box, broke hip, had surgery, and had to spend an entire month in a rehabilitation hospital. I'm sure the cost was enormous. But it was all paid by social security and by my supplemental insurance policy.
Also at the age of 62, I began receiving small checks, about $500 a month, from social security. This was enough for my personal needs so I stopped taking salary from ministry. To this day, this is still the way I live.
The tax audit turned out to be a great blessing for me and for the ministry!
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HYMN: AMAZING GRACE
(Verse 4)
When we've been there
ten-thousand years,
Bright shinning as the sun,
We've no less days
to sing God's praise
Than when we first begun.
(To hear this hymn played on piano and to follow along with the words, click on the following link and then when it appears on screen, tap on the play arrow, > )
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