Internal Revenue agents today started an investigation into the financial records of Rev. Charles E. Coughlin. They will establish the identity of his backers, the distribution of moneys collected, and other facts which will determine how much of the vast income of the Radio League of the Little Flower is subject to income tax.
For two years the Commissioner of Internal Revenue has withheld enforcement of a Federal order directing Coughlin’s radio league to pay income taxes on $1,458,658. Now the Michigan CIO has called upon the commissioner to collect from the radio unit at once “in view of the present national emergency and the nation’s needs for defense funds.”
Coughlin’s attorneys had bitterly opposed paying income taxes on the Non collected, insisting that the radio league was “religious and educational.” But on Feb. 10, 1940, the Internal Revenue Dept. ruled that the league was not exempt from income tax.
The arrival of revenue agents now, to make a checkup after two years, was considered significant in view of Atty. Gen. Biddle’s ruling Monday that Social Justice was guilty of violation of the Espionage Act.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
