Fallout from allegations of tea party targeting hamper IRS oversight of nonprofits

By Robert O'Harrow Jr. December 17 at 7:11 PM

Years of conservative attacks on the Internal Revenue Service have greatly diminished the ability of agency regulators to oversee political activity by charities and other nonprofits, documents and interviews show.

The fall in oversight, a byproduct of repeated cuts to the IRS budget, comes at a time when the number of charities is reaching a historic high and they are becoming more partisan and financially complex.

It represents a success for conservatives who have long sought to scale back the IRS and shrink the federal government. They capitalized on revelations in 2013 that IRS officials focused inappropriately on tea party and other conservative groups based on their names and policy positions, rather than on their political activity, in assessing their applications for tax-exempt status. Among conservatives, the episode has come to be known as the “IRS targeting scandal.”

Under the federal tax code, charities may not directly or indirectly support a political candidate, but they are allowed to participate in educational debates about the issues. Other nonprofits known as social welfare groups may be involved in politics, but only as long as it is not their primary purpose.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/fallout-from-allegations-of-tea-party-targeting-hamper-irs-oversight-of-nonprofits/2017/12/17/6403c1c0-c59e-11e7-a441-3a768c8586f1_story.html