PENSACOLA -When Awake America crusades rolled into four cities last year, the Brownsville Revival leaders did more than preach.
During the two-day crusades, they sold T-shirts, books, tapes, bumper stickers and many other souvenirs, through the nonprofit corporations each minister created.
Two of the four states they visited required them to collect and remit sales tax on the merchandise transactions. Bob Rogers, who oversees the crusades, said he does not know whether the ministers paid taxes in those states.
The revival crusade leaders - evangelist Steve Hill, Pastor John Kilpatrick and music minister Lindell Cooley - relied on officials at the host arenas to tell them what to pay, Rogers said.
"In some cases they collected tax from us, and in some cases they didn't," Rogers said.
"That's not the way to do it."
Both Tennessee and California require sales tax, regardless of whether the organization selling merchandise is registered as a nonprofit business.
Ohio and Texas, the other two states that Awake America visited last year, exempt the nonprofits from collecting and paying sales tax.
Rogers said Wednesday he planned to meet that same afternoon with Dallas attorney Stephen Coke, newly hired by Hill's Together in the Harvest, to determine what taxes will be due in the six states on the Awake America 1998 schedule.
