A nonprofit watchdog group, Trinity Foundation, has identified more than 60 religious nonprofit organizations with assets totaling almost $1.8 billion that have stopped filing 990 forms with the IRS. IRS 990s disclose executive salaries and program services expenses and other important financial information, helping informed donors evaluate the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations.

Program services are determined by subtracting fundraising and management expenses from total expenses to derive the amount spent on the nonprofit organization’s mission.

When Charity Navigator rates nonprofit organizations, it deducts points for charities that spend less than 70 percent on their mission.

As an example, in 2023 Hal Lindsey Website Ministries program services expenses reached only 55.96%. As a result they received seven points out of 25 from Charity Navigator. That year Hal Lindsey’s wife, Jo Lynn Lindsey, received $1,238,924 in compensation, which was almost a third of the ministry’s spending and more than half the ministry’s revenue. The ministry had $23 million in assets at the end of 2023, including more than $3 million in cash.

Following Hal Lindsey’s 2024 death, Trinity Foundation reported, “From 2013 to 2023, Hal and his wife JoLynne Lindsey received $18.5 million of compensation from Hal Lindsey Website Ministries. During those 11 years, the ministry spent only $1,105,360 in charitable assistance to groups and individuals.”

However, American churches and related organizations classified as integrated auxiliaries are not required by law to disclose program services expenses or billions of dollars of assets to their donors or to the IRS.

Therefore, if Hal Lindsey Website Ministries was a church and didn’t file 990s, donors would have no way of knowing about the massive accumulation of wealth from ministry donations.

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) publishes an annual report filled with data about financial fraud. According to the ACFE’s 2024 Report to the Nations, “The presence of anti-fraud controls is associated with lower fraud losses and quicker fraud detection.”

The filing of complete, accurate 990s should be seen as an anti-fraud control.

When a ministry stops filing 990s, ministry executives could be rejecting transparency to hide misconduct in the form of excessive benefit transactions and excessive compensation.

Another critical piece of information disclosed in the 990s is housing allowances.

Sean Feucht Ministries has acquired three parsonages in California, Montana and Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, Sean Feucht has acquired 10 personal properties. Does Feucht receive housing allowances in addition to parsonages?

Recently, online Bible teacher Mike Winger challenged Feucht on his many properties, asking why the activist and worship leader had multiple parsonages, in addition to many homes.

Sean Feucht,

Why do you have multiple parsonages along with owning many homes?

It is reported that one of your homes is only around 7 miles away from one of your parsonages.

That is, your ministry paid $3,450,000 for a home less than ten miles from a house you own, and said…

— Mike Winger (@MikeWingerii) June 11, 2025

In 2005, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson sent a 14-page letter to Senator Chuck Grassley and the Senate Finance Committee which reported the IRS has “little ability to monitor (churches) against diversion of assets” because they are not required to file the Form 990 informational return.

In 2011, a Senate Finance Committee memo reported, “For example, we found at least 21 ‘assumed names’ registered with the State of Texas for Eagle Mountain International Church (also known as Kenneth Copeland Ministries). These included record companies and recording studios. This raises the question of whether church status is being gamed to shield such activities of a tax-exempt entity from public scrutiny.”

Protecting Sensitive Information from the IRS and Foreign Governments

Foreign missions agencies and organizations aiding persecuted Christians often avoid filing 990s because they include sensitive information. However, some nonprofits, like Voice of the Martyrs, don’t submit 990s to the IRS but still provides them to donors upon request. Focus on the Family also stopped submitting 990s but makes them available to the public.

IRS abuses have also motivated religious nonprofits to stop sharing information. For example, when a donor gives $5,000 or more to a nonprofit, the donation is reported on a Schedule B, but the donor information is removed by the IRS before the 990 is published online.

However, an IRS employee once leaked the names of donors to the National Organization for Marriage, a nonprofit organization opposed to gay marriage, to gay rights groups. The name of the leaker was not disclosed.

The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) has also stopped submitting 990s to the IRS but posts them on their website. Another watchdog group, MinistryWatch, has identified nearly 200 religious nonprofits not filing Form 990s.

Reclassification as Churches

Some of the nonprofit ministries that no longer file 990s previously requested the IRS reclassify them as churches.

After a nonprofit organization requests a reclassification, the IRS sends a determination letter which often states if a nonprofit is required to file a 990.

The IRS reclassification process raises questions. For example, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries was reclassified as an association of churches, even though it had no “established places of worship”; members who were “not associated with any other church or denomination”; or “distinct religious history.” Yet all these characteristics are included in the IRS’s 14-Point Church Test. 

Group Exemptions are also problematic as determination letters do not always explicitly say if organizations must file 990s.

In 2014, the IRS granted a Group Exemption to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the ministry stopped filing 990s, even though the determination letter doesn’t say the ministry is exempt from filing.

Becoming More Transparent

When a nonprofit organization’s legal structure or status changes, it may be required to request reclassification.  After affiliating with a church, Student Leadership University was granted an exemption from filing 990s in 2020. After the church affiliation ended, the nonprofit contacted the IRS, which posted a new determination letter in 2024, requiring the organization to file 990s.

The Trinity Foundation encourages other religious nonprofits to become more financially transparent by not requesting exemptions from filing 990s. Instead, the group encourages religious nonprofits to give its supporters the financial information they need to practice donor responsibility.

A version of this article was originally published by Trinity Foundation.

Barry Bowen is a staff member of Trinity Foundation, a public nonprofit based in Dallas, Texas, that has been tracking religious fraud and helping victims for over 30 years.