Congressmen Complain as IRS Harasses Tea Party

[M.D. Rawlings]

True. And now the facts:

Many tea party groups are applying under section 501 (c) (4) of the federal tax code, which grants tax-exempt status as long as organizations are not primarily involved in activity that could influence an election. That determination is up to the IRS.

Douglas Shulman, IRS Chief, Says Tea Party Groups Not Being Targeted By Agency

Needless to say most TPM groups exist only to attempt to influence the outcome of elections, the IRS investigations are consequently warranted and non-partisan. Indeed, the IRS would be remiss in its duty to the taxpayer if they did not investigate.

No. Once again, Mr. Legal Eagle, as you did with the current uniform rule/code of naturalization, you're confounding the matter:

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances. For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.

On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention. . . .

The Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations​

The Tea Party is a non-profit, voter-education and -registration organization. Such organizations inherently embrace any given ideology and take policy-related stances, and they may freely express the latter in private or public gatherings. These activities do not constitute violations of their tax-exempt status so long as they do not formally/overtly promote any political party or candidate. Of course, because the latter will tend to coincide with the political stance of one candidate or another, with one party or another, we have a very fine line of separation here.

We can debate the practicalities—or is it the absurdities?—of the law, but the fact remains that in practice the essence of the latter activities with regard to this inherent, inescapable fact of reality have not been interpreted to constitute biased activities of "prohibited participation or intervention" on the part of either leftist or conservative groups. Hence, most Tea Party franchises generally do not "exist only to . . . influence the outcome of elections" in any prohibited partisan fashion as you seem to imply.

But more to the point, the private political activities of any given organization's members, those conducted beyond the group's activities, are off limits; i.e., they are free to support or contribute to any party or candidacy. Given that the Tea Party's status and general activities have been well-established for more than three years, the IRS's sudden back-and-forth delays and curiosity about certain aspects of the membership of emerging franchises strikes me as being a bit unseemly, especially since the IRS is not entitled to much of the sort of information it has been demanding from Tea Party groups of late.

The article at the end of this link gets to the core of the matter: McClintock: IRS harassing Tea Party.

With regard to standard practice and understanding, as the contributions or expenses of private political action are not tax deductible and, therefore, irrelevant, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman's assertion that " '[t]his is the kind of back and forth that happens to people' who apply for tax-exempt status" (Douglas Shulman, IRS Chief, Says Tea Party Groups Not Being Targeted By Agency) is shoeshine, something that the informed on both sides of the political equation get.

 

[startitan]

Doesn't the IRS harrass everybody (Super-rick folks NOT included)?