Legal status
Main article:
Legal status of the Universal Life Church
Since its inception, the Universal Life Church has come into legal conflicts over such issues as the validity of ordinations and the tax-exempt status of the organization. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has ruled that the Church was tax-exempt some years, and not tax-exempt other years, based on the annual filing statement required of non-profit organizations.
The Universal Life Church Monastery Storehouse, Inc., also known as simply The Monastery, broke away from the ULC Headquarters in 2006. There was some litigation resulting from the schism due to the fact that The Monastery controls the ulc.org website.
The ULC Headquarters in Modesto and The Monastery now operate as two unaffiliated entities. Much to the ire of ULC ministers The Monastery uses the ULC name and claims to have been founded in 1959, thus acting as the progenitor church rather than a break-away.
Confusion between the two groups persists as The Monastery operates a number of other websites and is present on new social media sites, such as Facebook.