How are the recent congressional budget cuts affecting the IRS’s exempt organizations division? With growing concern about the effectiveness of IRS oversight of exempt organizations, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent, non-partisan congressional watchdog, was asked to prepare a report to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs about the division’s …
Posts Categorized: Congressional ax
Proposed SUN Act Requires Increased Nonprofit Transparency
Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) recently introduced the Sunlight for Unaccountable Nonprofits Act (The SUN Act), which would require that already public information about nonprofits (specifically, that included on their annual information returns) be made available to the public at no charge in an open, searchable format. The Act specifically would require the information provided be …
501(c)(4) Scandal Focuses In on IRS's Political Bias
Democrats and Republicans on a Senate investigative panel reviewing the so-called tea party scandal agree that the IRS used improper methods to scrutinize the exemption applications of social welfare organizations. But the agreement stops there. The Democrat-led Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that there was “no evidence of IRS political bias” in the agency’s actions. …
Coats Bill Requires Warning Before Automatic Revocation
Nonprofit organizations that fail to file their annual information returns for three consecutive years, regardless of the size of the organization, automatically lose their exemption. According to Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.), this has caused more than 550,000 nonprofits to lose their exemption over the past four years, many because they were unaware of the filing …
Congress Votes to Hold Lerner in Contempt
As we tweeted last week, the House voted to hold Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress. The vote was largely along party lines, with six Democrats voting with the Republicans. Lerner has now joined an exclusive list of government officials held in contempt of Congress by congressional committees for refusing to cooperate with congressional investigations. …
Florida Considering Tightening the Reigns on Charities and Fundraisers
Remember when we told you about the nation’s 50 worst charities? Florida’s lawmakers noticed that 11 of those worst offenders were based in Florida. In an effort to clean up Florida’s charities, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam has proposed a plan to tighten regulations on Florida’s charities and for-profit fundraisers. (The state charity registrar in Florida …