"Social Welfare Organizations"
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 6:02 am
As crooked as churches when it comes to paying their share of taxes. (At least the political ones like Crossroads GPS)
Leeches!!!
Leeches!!!
The fact is, the I.R.S. should be dedicated to enforcing the law against phony social welfare claims by all political schemers, from the right or the left. This abuse of the tax law mushroomed after the Supreme Court’s reckless Citizens United decision in 2010 that ended limits on campaign spending by corporations and unions. Since 2006, when only $5.2 million was spent by exempt organizations that do not disclose donors, spending increased 60-fold, to more than $300 million in the 2012 presidential cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. An even bigger infusion is expected in 2016 from big-money donors shielded by the social welfare fiction.
Earlier this year, Mr. Koskinen declared that nonprofit social welfare groups could spend up to 49 percent of revenues on political activity and still keep their tax exemption. This ill-advised statement did not encourage optimism about a tightening of the code. It also contradicts existing law, upheld in court decisions, that these groups must be “operated exclusively to promote social welfare.”
Current regulations allow for some political activity provided it is not a group’s “primary” mission, but the notion that a group can use the social welfare shield to devote 49 percent of its revenues to electioneering is outrageous.
It is a gross insult to taxpayers to make them underwrite the brazen evasions of campaign operatives bundling dark money. The abuse is compounded by the latest I.R.S. retreat from its responsibility.