OMB Watch: Arbitrariness Afflicts IRS Crackdown on Nonprofit Advocacy

09:00 AM Jul 08, 2006

Our friends at OMB Watch just issued a report that will be troubling to the many cause-oriented nonprofits in the DIA community, especially with election season approaching.

The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) new approach to enforcing the ban on partisan activities by charities and religious organizations has raised serious questions about the agency's interpretation of the law, about evenhanded enforcement, and about the appropriateness of an approach aimed at deterring speech.

The IRS has bared its teeth at a supposed epidemic of politicking by not-for-profit organizations, with the NAACP the highest-profile target to date.  Whatever one might think in principle about what restrictions should attend the beneficence of tax exemption, the actual standards at work are murky and their application seemingly arbitrary ... with a frisson of the political dirty trickery so illustrious in the annals of Internal Revenue.

For ongoing news about advocacy rights and restrictions in the charitable sector, add OMB Watch's Advocacy Blog and the Alliance for Justice's Nonprofit and Foundation Advocacy Blog to your RSS reader.

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