Tea Party Victory!
IRS Backs Down on Tea Party Fight
activities of nonprofits that the IRS had deemed to be political in
nature.
Despite
the efforts by the Obama Administration to quietly advance the proposed rule
changes, the proposed IRS regulations caused an uproar with many
nonprofit groups on
both sides of the aisle who seek to provide a public
service dedicated to social welfare.
Now,
it seems that the IRS has yielded to the likelihood of a fierce legal
fight by nonprofits
and has scrapped the proposed rules and regulations
that would have broadly defined-
and prohibited- “political activity” by
nonprofits as a means of curtailing influence of
groups that serve a
public purpose that may run counter to the Obama agenda.
The
rules would have made it impossible for nonprofits to discuss anything
the Obama
Administration deemed political- that included speaking of the
Constitution, issuing
nonpartisan voter guides or mounting nonpartisan
drives to register voters.
In
order to maintain tax-exempt status, a 501(c)4, the official
designation for nonprofits,
must serve as a beacon of social welfare and
strive to better society. While some nonprofits
better society by
running soup kitchens, many look to better their communities by offering
information and resources to the people.
While
nonprofits have long been barred from actively campaigning for a
candidate in
an official capacity, these new regulations would have
made, essentially, any utterance
of anything quasi-political a form of
“political activity,” thus enabling the federal government
the right to
crack down on nonprofits- which includes many Tea Party groups.
The
new regulations were seen as an attempt to codify what Obama’s IRS had
hoped to
achieve with mere harassment. For years, Tea Party groups were
stifled and forced to fight
legal battles. With this anchor dragging
them down, these groups were naturally hindered
in their ability to
effect the needed changes.
In December of 2013, as the IRS considered the proposed regulations, Kimberly Strassel
of The Wall Street Journal noted,
What makes this targeting more obvious is that the Obama Treasury rule only applies to 501(c)(4) groups. The ultra-liberal League of Women Voters Education Fund is registered as a 501(c)(3)—one of those “charities” supposedly held to the strictest IRS standards on politicking. Yet it brags on its website that it holds “candidate debates and forums,” and that its “educational activities” include “understanding candidate views and ballot initiatives.”The League will continue to be able to do its voter guides and registrations and candidate forums. Yet under this new rule, any conservative social-welfare organization that attempts to do the same will likely lose its tax-exempt status. Nor does the new rule apply the biggest spenders of all in politics—unions, which are registered as 501(c)(5)s. The only category muzzled is the one recently flooded by conservative groups that Democrats fear in the 2014 election.
Strassel
also noted the timing of the new regulations that threatened the
implementation of these
new rules so as to discourage groups from
forming or growing. She wrote,
Consider the timing. This “proposed guidance”—while technically pending public comment—puts conservative groups on immediate notice that it could be enforced at any moment. It is clearly designed to have a chilling effect on any group gearing up for next year’s midterms, just as the first round of targeting was designed to dampen conservative participation in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
With
the IRS backing down, it is a tremendous victory for the Tea Party
Movement that relies on
nonprofit statuses to continue to organize and
educate.
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