How Absurd Tax-Exempt Status for Political Groups Will Erode Our Democracy
The Article: The Real IRS Scandal That No One Is Talking About by Kurt Eichenwald in Vanity Fair.
The Text: I’m not all that outraged that the I.R.S. held up applications by Tea Party groups for tax-exempt status. I’m outraged that any of them—or their liberal counterparts—qualify for that status at all.
Unfortunately, given the way this I.R.S. scandal slid so easily into ideological definitions, I fear that few non-politicos are recognizing the real disgrace here: that the federal government—Congress, the White House, the tax agency, and the Supreme Court—has created a situation where blatantly political organizations are able to legally break the law by pretending they’re something that they’re not.
The key to this obscene state of affairs is an entity known as a 501(c)(4), named for the section of the tax code that created it. Supposedly, these are civic associations or organizations devoted to social welfare, which can operate tax-free, but whose donors aren’t allowed to deduct their contributions. Fair enough.
