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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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November 27, 2013
BETTER THAN NOTHING
1. Crackdown on Dark Money in Politics
<http://elink.thedailybeast.com/4e5578dce018bee76c36d38d18dg7.2k53/UpX_o-YQFlcngpwSDc990>
Anonymous donors, disclosure reports filed late, activities shrouded in secrecy—and it’s all legal. But six months after the IRS was accused of targeting Tea Party groups, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it will be clarifying which activities qualify a group for nonprofit status. “It would certainly be better than the current system, where nobody has any idea what political spending actually is,” said Robert Maguire, the chief political nonprofits investigator for the Center for Responsive Politics. “But it’s a start, not a conclusion.”
Read it at The Daily Beast
<http://elink.thedailybeast.com/4e5578dce018bee76c36d38d18dg7.2k53/UpX_o-YQFlcngpwSEb520> |
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Fri Nov 29, 2013 7:23 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Politics
The Treasury Department’s New Crackdown on Dark Money Groups
Patricia Murphy
By Patricia Murphy
November 27th 20135:45 am
followMore Stories by Patricia Murphy
Anonymous donors, disclosure reports filed late, activities shrouded in secrecy—and it’s all legal. But now the Treasury Department is moving to shed some light on political nonprofits.
Six months after news broke that IRS staffers had spent more than two years reviewing Tea Party groups’ efforts to register with the government as tax-exempt organizations, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it is planning to change the rules governing nonprofits’ political activities altogether.
The department said it plans to create a new definition of “candidate-related political activity” to clarify which activities do and do not count toward a group’s work on social welfare, the key measurement for determining an organization’s tax-exempt status. Treasury also will open the process up for the public to comment on how much political activity a group can be engaged in and still be considered a social welfare organization, and thus tax-exempt.
Included in the department’s new definition of what would not count as social welfare work would be things like voter registration drives, communications, and events that identify a specific candidate and occur within 30 to 60 days of an election; and grants to outside groups that participate in campaigns and elections.
Treasury’s announcement came after blistering criticism from Republicans, who complained that the IRS has been singling out conservative and Tea Party groups for unreasonable scrutiny, as well as Democrats, who wondered aloud why Tea Party groups or any other political groups should be deemed “social welfare” organizations by the IRS, and thus freed from tax liabilities, in the first place.
The move also comes after years of complaints, as well as more recent lawsuits, from watchdog groups that said federal law clearly says nonprofits should be involved “exclusively” in social welfare activities, while the IRS has interpreted the law to mean groups should be involved “primarily,” or 51 percent, in social welfare and can spend the rest of their time on just about anything else, including politics.
Mark Mazur, Treasury’s assistant secretary for tax policy, called the plan “a first critical step toward creating clear-cut definitions of political activity by tax-exempt social welfare organizations.”
It is that lack of clear-cut definitions for rules governing 501(c)(4) organizations that watchdog groups blame for creating a dark corner of American elections, where donors remain anonymous, disclosure reports often come more than a year after the fact, and the activities of quasi-political groups can legally remain shrouded in secrecy as long as the groups in question can show 51 percent of their activities are not directly related to elections.
“It would certainly be better than the current system, where nobody has any idea what political spending actually is. But it’s a start, not a conclusion.”
From Crossroads GPS to the Tea Party Patriots to the Koch brothers-aligned Americans for Prosperity and the liberal Priorities USA, the number of nonprofit groups involved in politics has exploded in recent years. The expansion came as laws such as McCain-Feingold have restricted the amount of money that could go to political parties, while court decisions such as Citizens United v. FEC made it possible for corporations and unions to give unlimited donations to nonprofits involved in politics, which would keep their donations private, or dark.
The changing legal landscape also altered the political landscape. While nonprofit organizations spent just $5.2 million on federal elections in 2006, that number rocketed to more than $300 million by 2012.
Robert Maguire, the political nonprofits investigator at the Center for Responsive Politics, says 501(c)(4) organizations have become a “growing blind spot” in modern-day campaigns.
“These groups are spending more than $300 million on elections. It’s not as though they’re a small part of the process of how our Congress and president are elected,” he said. But he cautioned that the new rules the Treasury Department is considering will only be as effective as the IRS’s ability to implement them.
“It would certainly be better than the current system, where nobody has any idea what political spending actually is,” Maguire said. “But it’s a start, not a conclusion.”
By all accounts, the current system is a patchwork of heavily regulated, publicly disclosed donations to candidates, political parties, and super PACs overseen by the Federal Election Commission, and loosely regulated, often non-disclosed donations to nonprofits overseen by the IRS. While the FEC posts disclosures of political donations to campaigns and PACs on its website nearly every day, the IRS uses nonprofits’ tax returns, which can legally be filed more than a year after federal elections, to disclose nonprofits’ political activities.
Even then, watchdog groups say getting a nonprofit’s IRS form, called a “990,” can require a trip to the nonprofit itself, which may turn out to be a post office box; a faxed request to the IRS, for which a response takes 30 to 60 days; or a monthly bulk disclosure from the IRS, which includes up to 15,000 groups’ 990 forms and costs more than $2,000 a year for delivery.
Adam Rappaport, senior counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said nonprofits’ 990 forms are rarely an accurate reflection of their political activity, but they are the only piece of information the public can access. Even then, that access is difficult.
“It is certainly inadequate to tell you what they’re doing, what they’re spending their money on,” he said. “It’s not infrequent that we look at their 990s and then look at what they’re doing, and the two are not the same. That being said, what we get from them is certainly better than nothing.”
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Fri Nov 29, 2013 7:27 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Paul Blumenthal
paulblumenthal@huffingtonpost.com
'Dark Money' Nonprofit Political Spending Restricted In Proposed IRS Rules
Posted: 11/26/2013 2:52 pm EST | Updated: 11/26/2013 5:31 pm EST
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Campaign Finance, Video, 501c4, Citizens United Irs, Dark Money, Danny Werfel Irs, Dark Money Political Spending, Irs Disclosure, Irs New Rules, Irs Scandal, Nonprofit Irs, Transparency Irs, Politics News .
WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service announced on Tuesday new guidelines clarifying the definition of political activity for nonprofit organizations.
The new rules, which still face many procedural hurdles, would limit the political activities of nonprofit organizations and help prevent political actors from using these groups to provide anonymity to donors.
Since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, nonprofit organizations, particularly social welfare nonprofits organized under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code and trade associations organized under section 501(c)(6), have radically increased their reported political spending. In 2012, these groups reported to the Federal Election Commission spending in excess of $300 million. That was up from $69 million in 2008 and nearly $6 million in 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Much of this spending was allowed because of the lack of clear guidelines for political spending by nonprofits. The statute governing political activity by these nonprofits says that they must work "exclusively" on their social welfare purpose, but the regulatory interpretation of that statute says that "exclusively" means "primarily." The term "primarily," has been criticized since it does not specify the acceptable percentage of political spending for tax exempt groups.
To determine whether a nonprofit is engaged "primarily" in its social purpose instead of politics, the IRS uses a "fact and circumstances" test; an IRS employee determines whether a given communication or action is political or not. For years, there has been no clear guidance for what constitutes political activity.
The proposed guidelines seek to clarify the rules and reduce the IRS' need to impose the "facts and circumstances" test. They would provide clear lines to judge whether a given action is political and break down into three categories:
•Communications that would be considered political include calling for the election or defeat of a political candidate; any communication mentioning a political candidate or political party within 60 days of an election; and any expenditure that must be reported to the FEC.
•Grants and contributions made by the group to any political group that reports to the FEC, as well as grants and contributions made by the group to any 527 or tax exempt group that spends money on candidate-related political activity, would count as political under the new rules.
•Activities closely related to an election would be considered political. These include voter registration drives or get out the vote efforts, the distribution of certain materials promoting candidates, the preparation and distribution of voter guides mentioning candidates, and holding events within 60 days of an election featuring candidates.
“This proposed guidance is a first critical step toward creating clear-cut definitions of political activity by tax-exempt social welfare organizations,” Treasury Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark J. Mazur said in a statement. “We are committed to getting this right before issuing final guidance that may affect a broad group of organizations. It will take time to work through the regulatory process and carefully consider all public feedback as we strive to ensure that the standards for tax-exemption are clear and can be applied consistently.”
The proposed guidelines do not directly address the issue of how much a nonprofit can spend on political activity, but the IRS stated that it plans on issuing further guidance on that issue in the future.
Tuesday's announcement follows a controversy that erupted over the summer when reports revealed that the IRS improperly targeted certain nonprofit groups -- both conservative and liberal -- for intensive reviews of their applications. The controversy led to many congressional hearings and the ousters of the IRS' acting director Stephen Miller and IRS tax exempt organizations' head Lois Lerner.
During the scandal, Democrats pushed the IRS to review its rules governing political activity by tax exempt organizations and to impose clearer guidelines to reduce the potential for controversy when any group's political activities are examined. Bills were also proposed by Senate Democrats to change the IRS' rules for political activity.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) brought a court case challenging the IRS' previously ambiguous rules regarding political activity by tax exempt groups.
“This is part of ongoing efforts within the IRS that are improving our work in the tax-exempt area,” said IRS Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel of Tuesday's announcement. “Once final, this proposed guidance will continue moving us forward and provide clarity for this important segment of exempt organizations.” |
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Fri Nov 29, 2013 7:43 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Treasury, IRS Will Issue Proposed Guidance For Tax-Exempt Social Welfare Organizations
11/26/2013 Page Content
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) today will issue initial guidance regarding qualification requirements for tax-exemption as a social welfare organization under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This proposed guidance defines the term "candidate-related political activity," and would amend current regulations by indicating that the promotion of social welfare does not include this type of activity. The proposed guidance also seeks initial comments on other aspects of the qualification requirements, including what proportion of a 501(c)(4) organization's activities must promote social welfare.
The initial guidance is expected to be posted on the Federal Register later today.
There are a number of steps in the regulatory process that must be taken before any final guidance can be issued. Given the significant public interest in these and related issues, Treasury and the IRS expect to receive a large number of comments. Treasury and the IRS are committed to carefully and comprehensively considering all of the comments received before issuing additional proposed guidance or final rules.
"This proposed guidance is a first critical step toward creating clear-cut definitions of political activity by tax-exempt social welfare organizations," said Treasury Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark J. Mazur. "We are committed to getting this right before issuing final guidance that may affect a broad group of organizations. It will take time to work through the regulatory process and carefully consider all public feedback as we strive to ensure that the standards for tax-exemption are clear and can be applied consistently."
"This is part of ongoing efforts within the IRS that are improving our work in the tax-exempt area," said IRS Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel. "Once final, this proposed guidance will continue moving us forward and provide clarity for this important segment of exempt organizations."
Organizations may apply for tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code if they operate to promote social welfare. The IRS currently applies a "facts and circumstances" test to determine whether an organization is engaged in political campaign activities that do not promote social welfare. Today's proposed guidance would reduce the need to conduct fact-intensive inquiries by replacing this test with more definitive rules.
In defining the new term, "candidate-related political activity," Treasury and the IRS drew upon existing definitions of political activity under federal and state campaign finance laws, other IRS provisions, as well as suggestions made in unsolicited public comments.
Under the proposed guidelines, candidate-related political activity includes:
•Communications
•Communications that expressly advocate for a clearly identified political candidate or candidates of a political party.
•Communications that are made within 60 days of a general election (or within 30 days of a primary election) and clearly identify a candidate or political party.
•Communications expenditures that must be reported to the Federal Election Commission.
•Grants and Contributions
•Any contribution that is recognized under campaign finance law as a reportable contribution.
•Grants to section 527 political organizations and other tax-exempt organizations that conduct candidate-related political activities (note that a grantor can rely on a written certification from a grantee stating that it does not engage in, and will not use grant funds for, candidate-related political activity).
•Activities Closely Related to Elections or Candidates
•Voter registration drives and "get-out-the-vote" drives.
•Distribution of any material prepared by or on behalf of a candidate or by a section 527 political organization.
•Preparation or distribution of voter guides that refer to candidates (or, in a general election, to political parties).
•Holding an event within 60 days of a general election (or within 30 days of a primary election) at which a candidate appears as part of the program.
These proposed rules reduce the need to conduct fact-intensive inquiries, including inquiries into whether activities or communications are neutral and unbiased.
Treasury and the IRS are planning to issue additional guidance that will address other issues relating to the standards for tax exemption under section 501(c)(4). In particular, there has been considerable public focus regarding the proportion of a section 501(c)(4) organization's activities that must promote social welfare. Due to the importance of this aspect of the regulation, the proposed guidance requests initial comments on this issue. The proposed guidance also seeks comments regarding whether standards similar to those proposed today should be adopted to define the political activities that do not further the tax-exempt purposes of other tax-exempt organizations and to promote consistent definitions across the tax-exempt sector.
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Fri Nov 29, 2013 7:47 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Bloomberg Businessweek
Politics & Policy
Politics & Policy
Koch Brothers Caught Up in California Crackdown on Hidden Political Donors
By Karen Weise October 25, 2013
Two nonprofit groups connected with the billionaire Koch brothers are part of a $16 million settlement with the state of California for funneling money to political campaigns without properly disclosing their donors.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris and the state’s campaign finance regulator, Fair Political Practices Commission, reached a settlement that includes a combined $1 million fine for two Arizona-based organizations described by regulators as “part of the ‘Koch Brothers’ Network’ of dark money political nonprofit corporations.” The agreement also forces two California campaign committees to disgorge $15 million received without proper disclosure.
The settlement centers on a rush out-of-state funds drawn to campaigns last year over two ballot measures: the effort to defeat Proposition 30, a measure that sought to raise the sales tax and boost income taxes on the wealthy to increase education funding, and the drive to support Proposition 32, which sought to limit political contributions made by unions. Neither effort supported by the funds proved successful, as voters last year passed Prop. 30 and rejected Prop. 32.
STORY: How to Ask Donors for Money, by Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen
California law mandates that donations over $1,000 made to advocate for specific ballot measures, rather than broad issues, must be disclosed. Money given closer to an election is seen by the law as likelier to be pegged to a specific measure. The settlement agreement outlines a web of nonprofit organizations that conservative fundraisers used “inadvertently, or at worst negligently” to hide the names of donors. As state officials untangled the donations, they found the the Koch brother’s Americans for Responsible Leadership was a source of $11 million in donations that were given through another Koch-linked group, the Center to Protect Patient Rights, as an intermediary to a California campaign committee. The settlement doesn’t allege that the Koch brothers directly funded the efforts, but rather their network of nonprofits and allies enabled the evasion.
As the Los Angeles Times explains, the settlement also doesn’t force the groups to disclose the names of donors. “Only a haphazardly redacted list of names, uncovered by state officials through their investigation, provides clues to some of the original donors’ identities,” the paper wrote, going on to list the known name:
Charles Schwab, the San Francisco investor, gave $6.4 million. The Fisher family, owners of clothing retailer Gap Inc., where Brown’s wife was once an executive, donated more than $9 million. Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad provided $1 million, despite his public support for higher taxes on high-earning Californians. And casino owner Sheldon Adelson, one of the biggest Republican donors in the country, and his wife gave $500,000. B. Wayne Hughes, founder of Public Storage, donated $450,000.”
(The Huffington Post posted a PDF of the document, and the New York Times has other original documents from the investigation in the sidebar here.)
STORY: Supreme Court and Campaign Finance: Four Blunt Points
California is one of several states, including Montana and New York, that are trying to create and enforce campaign finance rules that are stricter than federal laws. California’s state regulator called this a “record” settlement.
Weise_190
Weise is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek in New York. Follow her on Twitter @kyweise. |
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Fri Nov 29, 2013 7:57 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| This will make it easier to crack down on local groups as well. |
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Fri Nov 29, 2013 8:00 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Independent record
State’s top cop cracks down on dark money in ruling against ATP, other groups
October 17, 2013 12:30 am • By MIKE DENNISON IR State Bureau
In far-reaching decisions Wednesday, Montana’s top political cop ruled that a prominent “dark money” group and similar groups broke state campaign laws when they coordinated mailers that promoted or attacked candidates in a 2010 legislative primary election.
The rulings from Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl also said former state Rep. Dan Kennedy, a Laurel Republican, accepted illegal contributions from the same nonprofit corporations and failed to properly report those donations.
Motl said the rulings send a message to Montana candidates and groups that would flout state campaign-disclosure laws, warning that they must fully report spending and donations related to campaign-related activity.
He advised candidates to “avoid such activity” in the 2014 campaign.
“Such avoidance can only be good for all Montanans, as it leads to better and fairer elections which, in turn, lead to better acceptance of election results and better governance for us all,” he wrote in his decision.
Candidates for state office in Montana run “with the expectation that they will not be bushwhacked by late, undisclosed and unreported expenditures,” Motl added.
The rulings — more than three years in the making — focus primarily on American Tradition Partnership (ATP), a pro-business, anti-environmentalist group that’s been a lightning rod for campaign-finance controversy in Montana and elsewhere.
The nonprofit group, formed in 2008 as Western Tradition Partnership, has financed numerous mailers attacking or promoting candidates in Montana in the 2008, 2010 and 2012 elections — mailers often sent in the final days before the election.
The group usually supports Republicans, but also has gone after Republicans, in primary battles, that it deems too “liberal” or not sufficiently pro-development.
ATP has never reported any of its campaign-related spending in Montana or its donors, claiming its material is merely educating voters on issues, rather than advocating for or against a candidate.
Critics refer to ATP and similar groups as purveyors of “dark money,” because they don’t disclose where they got their money or how it’s spent.
Wednesday’s rulings are in response to complaints filed in 2010 by Debra Bonogofsky, a Billings businesswoman who lost to Kennedy in the House District 57 Republican primary. She was a target of Western Tradition Partnership attack mailers in the waning days of the June 2010 campaign.
Bonogofsky alleged that WTP and several other secretive groups failed to properly report campaign spending or their donors and illegally coordinated with Kennedy on campaign spending and strategy.
Motl, whose rulings confirmed most of Bonogofsky’s allegations, said he expects to take the issues to state District Court, seeking civil penalties against Kennedy, ATP and the other groups.
He also said he’ll use the findings in the Bonogofsky decision to investigate whether ATP’s predecessor, Western Tradition Partnership, illegally coordinated with other candidates in 2010 elections.
Neither Kennedy nor attorneys representing him or ATP could be reached for comment early Wednesday.
Wednesday’s ruling isn’t the first time ATP has found itself in the middle of a legal battle over campaign laws in Montana.
It successfully sued to invalidate Montana’s ban on corporate independent expenditures in campaigns, winning the case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012, but later lost a more expansive effort to strike down Montana campaign-finance regulations.
In 2010, ATP — then known as Western Tradition Partnership — helped Kennedy in his primary race against Bonogofsky, sending out more than a dozen mailers either promoting Kennedy or attacking Bonogofsky.
Three other groups — the Assembly Action Fund, Montanan Citizens for Right to Work and the National Gun Owners Alliance — also sent last-minute mailers attacking Bonogofsky, who lost to Kennedy, 55 percent to 45 percent. Motl called Assembly Action Fund an “agent” of ATP.
Motl’s ruling on the complaints came after a lengthy investigation that included information from a trove of ATP documents that showed up at the Political Practices Office in Helena last year, delivered anonymously.
The documents, eventually subpoenaed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, are now being held at FBI offices in Missoula, Motl said.
Motl ruled that ATP, the Assembly Action Fund and Montana Citizens for Right to Work clearly coordinated with Kennedy on his campaign against Bonogofsky, and therefore Kennedy should have reported their expenditures as in-kind contributions to his campaign.
He also said the groups should have publicly reported their expenditures, because the mailers they sent attacking Bonogofsky or helping Kennedy are clearly campaign material.
Bonogofsky also filed a complaint against the National Gun Owners Alliance, which sent mailers to HD57 voters shortly before the 2010 primary election, attacking her for not answering a pro-gun survey.
Motl said there was no evidence that the Virginia-based group coordinated with Kennedy, but said it broke state law by failing to register with his office as a political committee and report its election expenses and contributions. |
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Fri Nov 29, 2013 8:08 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Politics
Koch Brothers Break New Ground in Dark Money
The billionaires' latest group could be the first in a new class of campaign finance weapons.
By Alex Seitz-Wald
September 13, 2013
The Koch brothers are nothing if not innovators in the murky world of campaign finance, and their latest venture—a secret fund that quietly distributed $250 million to conservative groups during the 2012 election, as by revealed by Politico yesterday—is no exception. The group explores near-virgin territory in the tax code as the first in what could be a new class of weapons in the secret money arms race.
On its face, Freedom Partners looks like any of the other dark-money groups that have proliferated in recent years. Those tax-exempt "social welfare" organizations, called 501(c)(4)s for their tax code designation, can raise unlimited amounts of money without disclosing their donors, and can spend just shy of half of it on politics.
But unlike those groups, Freedom Partners is organized under a different section of the tax code, 501(c)(6), which is typically reserved for chambers of commerce and trade groups like the American Bar Association and the National Beer Wholesalers Association. Political activity from these groups is nothing new—the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was one of the biggest spenders in the 2010 and 2012 elections—but Freedom Partners is plainly not a business association in the traditional sense; its roughly 200 donors are united by a common ideology, rather than a common industry.
"I haven't seen a situation like this, and we watch that area pretty closely," said Jim Clarke, the senior vice president of public policy at the Society of Association Executives, a sort of trade association of trade associations. "I can safety say, anecdotally at least, that this would be new."
Why Freedom Partners would chose 501(c)(6) status over the more common 501(c)(4) is a bit of a mystery because the rules governing political activity are essentially the same for both, but experts speculate there may be some advantages in the choice.
Douglas Varley, a professor at Georgetown Law and a lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale who advises nonprofit groups, said he hasn't seen an organization quite like this before. "I'm surprised that it's a (c)(6) from a pointy-headed lawyer's perspective, but I'm not that surprised from a realist political perspective," he said.
One advantage of the status, Varley explained, is that companies could write off direct contributions to the group as business expenses more easily. It's possible to do that with a more traditional 501(c)(4) group, but harder to justify, while contributions to business associations are routine.
Indeed, when asked why his group chose the particular section of the tax code it did, Freedom Partners spokesperson James Davis told National Journal, "The (c)(6) structure allows us to work with businesses—both large and small—across a variety of industries to advance our member's business interests of promoting the principles of a free market and a free society."
Meanwhile, with an eye on the increasing scrutiny directed at (501(c)(4)s, Freedom Partners may have decided it was safer to move into a new regulatory space. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., recently sued the IRS to try to force it to crack down on (c)(4)s, while some state attorneys general, such as New York's Eric Schneiderman, have been trying to make the groups disclose their donors. Then there's all the bad press that the dark-money groups sustained during the 2012 campaign, and the renewed scrutiny during this year's IRS scandal, which revolved around allegations that the tax agency improperly targeted tea-party 501(c)(4) groups.
With all the heat on those groups, Viveca Novak of the Center for Responsive Politics said she's heard some political strategists say they've been looking at section 501(c)(6) as a potential refuge. "Business associations may not fall within the charitable trust jurisdiction of state attorneys general, so the arrangement could help stymie states' efforts to shed some light on who is behind the organizations," Novak wrote on the campaign finance watchdog's blog.
Politically, it would also be much harder for states to regulate these kinds of groups, Varley pointed out, because any new policy on 501(c)(6)s would affect not just ideological dark-money group, but all the quotidian—and powerful—industry groups in a state, as well as local chambers of commerce.
There's nothing illegal or underhanded about using the designation this way, though any 501(c)(6) organization does have to meet certain requirements to be a considered a business league. Apparently Freedom Partners has satisfied them. Davis said the IRS officially recognized his group in January of last year after it was in established the previous November.
And it's not entirely without precedent. The conservative Americans for Job Security set up shop back in 1997 as a 501(c)(6). But otherwise, Freedom Partners appears to be in uncharted waters. "We've seen significant amounts of money spent through (c)(6)s, but they've been through well-established, more well-known trade organizations like the Chamber of Commerce," said Paul S. Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center.
Marcus Owens, who for 10 years ran the IRS office that oversees tax-exempt organizations, said that while he didn't see an obvious benefit to the new status, it might just serve to complement other groups in the Koch Brothers network. They already have their hands in 501(c)(3)s, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, and 501(c)(4)s, such as Americans for Prosperity, plus their company's PAC, so a 501(c)(6) is the next logical place to expand to create a new giving option for donors.
"It strikes me as maybe the Koch Brothers are trying for one of each kind of organization. Maybe next they'll set up a labor union!" Owens quipped. Call it the campaign finance version of EGOTing.
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Fri Nov 29, 2013 8:13 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| I am told by Flint residents that they support the crackdown on 501 (c) 4 organizations. They also would like a crackdown on churches and other nonprofits that flaunt their political positions. |
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Fri Nov 29, 2013 3:02 pm |
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