Los Angeles ? The IRS increasingly is being asked to referee disputes about whether churches are improperly engaging in partisan politicking from the pulpit. And some fear the trend could endanger the taxman’s neutrality.

Months before November’s midterm elections, the Internal Revenue Service warned that it would be scrutinizing churches to make sure they do not violate their tax-exempt status. Groups both liberal and conservative have responded by lodging numerous complaints against churches with the IRS.

“Any citizen can form a group and spy on all these churches and report the results,” said Ed McCaffery, dean of the University of Southern California School of Law and a tax law expert. “This entanglement of church and state vis-a-vis the tax laws is deeply out of control.”

Churches can be important political forums during election season. Under federal tax law, churches can discuss politics, but if they endorse candidates or parties, they can be stripped of their tax-exempt status.

The IRS saw a spike in complaints of partisan politicking in 2004, the last national elections.

More recently, a group of pastors in Ohio filed a complaint with the IRS against two megachurch pastors they accused of actively supporting Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a Republican running for governor.

And the IRS was in the spotlight last month when the liberal All Saints Church, an Episcopal congregation in Pasadena, refused to cooperate with an investigation into an anti-war sermon a guest pastor delivered two days before the 2004 presidential election.

Some of those familiar with the IRS say recent changes in how the agency handles such cases could make it more vulnerable to political manipulation.

Until 2000, the decision to investigate churches and charities was made by one of a few high-ranking regional commissioners. Now that decision is made by a lower-level administrator, who may be less politically attuned, said Marcus Owens, All Saints’ attorney and a former IRS administrator.

“What was not intended to be a biased audit program is at risk of becoming one,” Owens said.

Steve Miller, commissioner of the IRS tax exempt and government entities division, dismissed such concerns, saying each complaint is reviewed by a three-person panel before being forwarded to the administrator. The decision to investigate a church also must be approved by an attorney, he said.

In 2004, the IRS launched investigations of 110 organizations; of the 90 it completed, it found violations in about 70 percent of the cases.

In 2005, the agency began audits of 70 churches and charities, which are still pending. It has 40 cases pending this year, a time when IRS officials have promised to redouble their scrutiny.