Talk:Paul Crouch

Paul Crouch may be dead, but other people named in the article are not; please note that all references to living people still need to abide by Wikipedia's biographical article policy relating to living people. -- The Anome (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Hey @Guy Macon I found that you left this one around. I trying to wrap my head around how Wikipedia BLP rules really work in practice. The policy say it "applies to any living person mentioned in a BLP, whether or not that person is the subject of the article". But in "Criticism and controversies" section, I seeing other living people getting named when talking about lawsuit, allegations, including supposed IRS violations. So I wondering how that really fit with BLP rules.

The last sentence in the section says "appeared to have violated the IRS ban on "excess compensation" by nonprofit organizations" does not reflect something formally confirmed by the IRS. So how does wikipedia decide when that kind of thing is okay as per rules at WP:DUE and WP:BLP when living people involved. One of the rule says "If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out". Would that be the one of the deciding factor for what stays in the article? If it not too much trouble, would you be able to take a look at the section and help me sort out this dilemma? NicoR8 (talk) 18:53, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Good question! Thanks for bringing it up.

WP:BLP only applies to a person who is living or in some cases recently deceased. Paul Crouch died in 2013 Jan Crouch died in 2016, so it doesn't apply to them. It also doesn't apply to organizations, so it doesn't apply to TBN. And there are multiple reliable sources that establish that Krittany Crouch Koper not only made those accusations, but filed a lawsuit containing them So nothing about BLP forbids "Brittany Koper, a granddaughter of the Crouches who had authority over finances, claimed that TBN appeared to have violated the IRS ban on 'excess compensation' by nonprofit organizations."

Do you see anything on this Wikipedia page that makes an accusation against a living person? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:47, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

ahh, I hear you on that about Wikipedia not making accusations against Brittany Koper and not really a BLP issue in that sense. What still giving me pause is the claim that it "appeared to have violated the IRS ", especially because source says allegations were disputed and countersued it feels like wikipedia is leaning into a side! Understood that watchdog and newspaper have reported on funds use and that part sounds fine, but would it be better to leave out the IRS "violation" framing?

The rules feel pretty clear for promotional information, but more tricky when it comes to purely allegations like this, with no further actions, from IRS in this case. Respect and much appreciated your time. NicoR8 (talk) 10:31, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

That "no further actions from IRS" bit brings up an interesting side issue. I was working for a small company and the IRS send them a letter saying we had violated a certain rule and owed an additional $30,000. We had our lawyer respond saying that by our calculations we owe an additional $6,000. We went back and forth a few times and we finally agreed to settle the issue with a $19,000 payment. None of this was ever made public. No legal papers were ever filed. Our lawyer told us that the IRS is all about getting paid, and only takes you to court if they can't get what they think they are owed. So it may very well be that the IRS took no action, or it might very well be that either TBN or the Crouches paid up. Wikipedia can't say. We can only publish thing that can be verified through reliable sources, not my speculations. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:18, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

Yea I see what you mean about the IRS process. I also agree Wikipedia can't speculate on outcomes with reliable sources. That's why "appeared to have violated the IRS ban" gave me a pause, especially since source also say the allegations in general were disputed and countersued and could lead the wikipedia readers to start inferring an outcome that is not actually confirmed. Might be safer to stick to remove "appeared to have violated the IRS ban". Grateful again for your time. NicoR8 (talk) 14:33, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

The only questions we have to deal with are

Is the source reliable?

Yes. The New York Times is a reliable source.

Does the source actually say that?

Yes. The entire quote is "In two pending lawsuits and in her first public interview, Ms. Koper described company-paid luxuries that she said appeared to violate the Internal Revenue Service’s ban on 'excess compensation' by nonprofit organizations as well as possibly state and federal laws on false bookkeeping and self-dealing."

Wikipedia says nothing about the outcome of that lawsuit, nor do we say anything that "could lead the wikipedia readers to start inferring an outcome that is not actually confirmed." We simply report what Brittany Crouch Koper told The New York Times.

You can read the NYT source here: (non-paywall version:)

Here is a reliable source with more details about the lawsuit:

Here is a WP:PRIMARY source that I think is the final ruling in the case, but I could not find any reliable secondary sources that say anything about it. I did find but have my doubts about the reliability of that source. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:39, 3 July 2026 (UTC)