Watchdog: Diet Drink Deal Might Put Robertson on Shaky Ground With IRS
by Allie Martin
September 7, 2005
(AgapePress) - Televangelist Pat Robertson is facing trouble on yet another front. Last week Robertson came under fire when he suggested on the 700 Club that the United States should assassinate Venezuela's president. And now, an evangelical watchdog group is accusing Robertson of abusing the nonprofit status of his ministry by using it to launch a business. Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, has for years given away a recipe for his "Age Defying" diet shake. Recently, however, he partnered with General Nutrition Corporation (GNC) to market the shake. But Ole Anthony, president of the Dallas-based religious media watchdog group Trinity Foundation, says the well-known TV minister cannot legally use his nonprofit ministry to push his nutritional drink.
"This is something that's done commonly throughout ministries," Anthony says. Frequently, he explains, ministers will "write a book -- sometimes a really bad book -- but it's promoted daily over the airtime, and they make, supposedly, royalties."
Some of these ministers are becoming "fabulously wealthy," the Trinity Foundation spokesman adds, "but it's because they're promoting it heavily on the donor-supported airtime." In Robertson's case, the "Age Defying" shake is also marketed on CBN's website. The Christian broadcaster claims more than one and a half million people have requested the recipe for the diet drink.
Anthony contends that, by doing this, Pat Robertson is misusing his ministry's tax-exempt, nonprofit status. "He created or entered into an agreement with GNC to produce the shake -- Pat's shake -- for his personal profit." Once he did that, the ministry watchdog says, "I didn't care if he promoted his recipe that he gave away for free; but to continue to promote it, for profit for him personally, is a violation of the IRS code."
Trinity Foundation has criticized past business ventures of Robertson's such as his African gold and diamond mines and Kalo-Vita, a multilevel marketing company that sold vitamins and cosmetics. In the case of "Pat's Diet Shake," the president of the watchdog organization says Robertson improperly used his nonprofit ministry to create a market for his shake -- a market that would not exist had the shake not been promoted during donor-paid-for airtime.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
