Watch: John Oliver Exposes Tax-Exempt Televangelism Frauds By Becoming A Televangelist

In what may be his best segment yet, John Oliver mocks and exposes televangelists and their puppet, the IRS, by becoming a televangelist.

From $65 million luxury jets to “big game” exotic animal hunting trips, ministers of the “prosperity gospel” have been fleecing poor and vulnerable Americans for decades. HBO’s John Oliver last night exposed some of the worst offenders, the televangelists who unrepentantly – under the guise of healing your poor health, poor credit, or poor sense of self-worth – “ask” for money so you can get better.

“This is about the churches that exploit people’s faith for monetary gain,” Oliver explains, showing clips after disgusting clip of supposed men and women of God instructing their followers to send them money. One told his followers they’ll never be able to buy a house with the $1000 they have in the bank – so they should just send him the $1000.

Oliver exposed others, all of whom ask for “seed money,” a ridiculous concept that doesn’t even rise to the level of pyramid scheme, but makes the televangelists millionaires.

The “Last Week Tonight” host showed clips of preachers like Creflo Dollar, the televangelist trying to get his flock to donate their dollars to buy him a $65 million luxury jet, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, whose big jet and big game hunting trip dreams came true, Mike Murdock, whose big jet reality includes two luxury jets that he bragged about buying in cash, and Robert Tilton, with whom Oliver revealed a correspondence “relationship” going back to January, which included Tilton sending Oliver an envelope marked “check enclosed,” which was a check from Oliver to Tilton.

The Washington Post notes Tilton “came under fire after an ABC investigation into his fundraising practices.”

Sadly, Tilton may have come under fire, but what televangelist fraudsters are doing is perfectly legal, thanks to “loosely defined” IRS regulations of tax exempt religious institutions. As Oliver explained, “if you’re registered as a religious non-profit, or especially a church, you are given broad exemptions over taxation and regulation.”

And thanks to those broad exemptions, Oliver, with comedic assistance from SNL’s Rachel Dratch, proceeded to explain that he has been able to create his own church, Our Lady Of Perpetual Exemption, a tax exempt “church.”

Noted on the Our Lady Of Perpetual Exemption website, as “Pastor, Megareverend, and CEO John Oliver” mentioned, “church services are Sunday evenings at 7 PM CBS Studios, New York, NY.”

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Image: Screenshot via LastWeekTonight/YouTube