[ryanisinallofus]

If huge corporations are hiding parts of their operations under a 501c status it SHOULD be looked into. Don't fall into the trap that Tea Party members fell into. This is not a scandal. Don't cry about it.

No big deal.

[newbie12]

To be fair, in the case of the Tea Party they delayed applications through the election, and there's also evidence the IRS handed donor information to outside groups.

[snowwrestler]

> in the case of the Tea Party they delayed applications through the election

Which shouldn't matter if they actually are social welfare organizations. If the election is that important to them, maybe they actually were hidden political orgs after all.

[samolang]

The law states that 501c groups are allowed to participate in politics so long as 51% of their money goes towards social welfare. For example, [1]. Would you say the same thing if planned parenthood was denied non-profit status because it is a liberal organization.

[1] http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00314617&cy...

[lambda]

If a group could be considered a "tea party" group, that pretty much indicates that it's primarily a political group; the term "party" specifically refers to a political institution. If a tea party group does some form of social welfare, that doesn't change the fact that it's primarily a political institution.

Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, is unquestionably a social welfare organization. It has offices which have doctors who provide a wide range of sexual and reproductive medical services to many women who would otherwise be unable to obtain them. If you look at their budge, 70% goes directly towards medical services. Less than 10% goes towards public policy; and what does, is advocating for policies to be able to continue the social welfare services that they provide, nothing else. Those figures you linked to for donations to political candidates represent less than 0.05% of their budget.

Where are the tea party offices that provide medical services to low income residents? Or heck, if you want to be fair to them, where are the tea party offices that provide tax advice to people who want to lower their tax burden? Of course, it's kind of hard to come up with examples of social welfare services that tea party groups could provide, because as far as I can tell, the tea party movement is primarily about opposition to social welfare, and a variety of political goals involving the reduction of the federal government. Even trying to stretch my imagination, I can't think of any social welfare programs that tea party groups would actually provide. I suppose they could qualify for tax exempt status if they shipped 51% of their revenues to other social welfare organizations that they supported, but that seems more like a tax dodge than an honest assessment of the purpose of the organizations.

Now, back on topic, I think that the software groups are sometimes more of a grey area. While there is a lot of open source software that is developed solely for social welfare reasons, there's also a good deal that is developed primarily by for-profit corporations. If there will be more than one for-profit company working on a joint project, it is common to set up a non-profit foundation that organizes the collaboration, or use an existing one. On the one hand, this can sound an awful lot like for profit companies trying to claim that their joint venture is actually a social welfare organization. On the other hand, due to the fact that the code is shared publicly and available for anyone to study and modify, it is arguably promoting social welfare and thus should be eligible.

If you check the actual recommendation, you will see that they have no specific recommendation for this type of situation; all it advises is "The [sic] is no specific guidance at this point. If you see a case, elevate it to your manager."

[tomjen3]

The entire point is that you really can't separate politics and social well-being. Often the most effective way to improve some groups life is through politics. Killing separate but equal for example.

[SomeCallMeTim]

No, the entire point is that political contributions shouldn't be tax deductible, no matter the goals.

I make lots of political contributions with the intent of improving social well-being. I just don't expect to also be able to deduct those contributions from my taxes.

The IRS wasn't preventing these groups from collecting money in support of a cause. It was preventing those donations from being deducted from your taxes.

I'm willing to take that tax hit to help people. It's the Tea Party supporters who hate taxes so much that are making a big deal of the fact that they can't get a deduction on their taxes on contributions made to elect people who will then try to reduce their taxes.

They want to double dip. Screw that. Make sure that the rules are fair in preventing any such political organization from being considered a "social welfare" organization, by all means. But don't let political contributions become deductible, no matter the politics.

[samolang]

So spending 10% of your budget on public policy is okay, but 49% is too much? You have to draw the line somewhere, they've chosen 49%. You can't just have IRS agents going "oh that sounds too political." You need actual enforceable rules.

[SomeCallMeTim]

You're creating and then trashing a strawman.

He said that he couldn't come up with ANYTHING that a "Tea Party" group could do outside of politics with the 51% of their money, other than launder it by giving it to other groups.

Why don't YOU come up with something OTHER than changing public policy that a Tea Party group would do with that 51%? Any Tea Party group is a political group by definition, and shouldn't qualify as a charitable group. Period. It's just a tax dodge, plain and simple. Heck, that's pretty much the point of the party is they don't like taxes, so it's a blatantly obvious tax dodge.

[counterpointer]

No it's more nuanced than the 51% number.

The actual law passed by Congress says "exclusively for social welfare". IRS interpretation changed that to "primarily social welfare" a few decades ago which is actually wrong since IRS cannot make laws, only implement them as written. There was a huge ruckus in congress over this matter. Can't find the video now but here's an article:

http://www.psmag.com/politics/the-irss-tea-party-tax-row-how...

[samolang]

So there's a law that states "exclusively for social welfare" and there's a law that says its okay to participate in non-social welfare activities? The laws sound contradictory to me and it seems like the IRS has a pretty good justification for their interpretation. Either way, whatever they rules are they should apply equally to all people/organizations.

As an aside, I wonder if you could make the legal argument that political donations are considered social welfare? If planned parenthood can call giving out birth control social welfare, then why can't it call advocating for the availability of free birth control social welfare? If advocating for the availability of free birth control is social welfare and political donations are covered by free speech, then why isn't giving political donations to candidates that support the availability of free birth control considered social welfare?

[counterpointer]

There is only one law which says exclusively. The "primarily" thing is an interpretation of the law by IRS.

[Guvante]

Except thanks to the complexity of laws, the IRS and other federal agencies are tasked with interpreting and enforcing said laws.

If Congress didn't like the interpretation they could have just passed a new law clarifying that fact.

[pyre]

So... if "the sky is blue" is interpreted to mean, "the sky is green," we have to wait for Congress to pass a new law stating, "the sky isn't green?"

[timtadh]

The conservative non-profit groups were not under that status they were under the one for political action groups.

[SomeCallMeTim]

Wow, if you're being downvoted for saying that, I guess there must be a lot of Tea Party supporters here who are misusing downvotes to express disagreement.

Or maybe they don't get that political organizations should not ever be charitable "social welfare" organizations, on the left or the right.

In any case, it seems to me that you've got an excellent point. And the fact is that there's tons of evidence that the IRS was just being slow, not partisan, INCLUDING the linked article.

"Tea Party", being a politically based category, seems like a natural red flag for the IRS, just as "Progressive" or "Libertarian" would be. It's really hard to believe that most of these organizations WOULD have qualified. If someone created a non-profit named "Democrats for Social Justice," I would equally expect the IRS to think twice about approving "charitable" status.

[samolang]

First of all, the IRS admitted to and apologized for specifically targeting conservative groups. Denying it at this point is absurd.

Second of all, the legal definition of a "social welfare" organization is that it spends at least 51% of its money on social welfare. So legally it's allowed to spend the other 49% of its money on politics. Plenty of organizations, both liberal and conservative, take advantage of this rule.

[SomeCallMeTim]

>51% of its money on social welfare

That's a pretty sucky rule, but regardless, I'd still have a hard time believing a "Tea Party" group would ONLY spend 49% of its money on politics, so I'm sorry, but I have to say "ha ha" that they missed a chance to influence the election.

I don't care if they apologized. That's PR 101 these days, regardless of fault. They also targeted progressive groups. And open source groups, apparently. Maybe they did target MORE Tea Party groups, or maybe there were just more Tea Party applicants than progressive group applicants. Regardless, it's all mob mentality lynching of the IRS without enough evidence to know what was really going on.

And I guess people who point out that it's not necessarily an actual conspiracy get downvoted for bursting that particular bubble. So be it.

[casual_slacker]

If there "is evidence", you should provide it.

[roboneal]

He said that on March 30, 2012, NOM became aware that the Human Rights Campaign, the pro-gay rights group, obtained confidential information of its donors and posted the information without redacting the names. That information later appeared on websites like the Huffington Post. NOM discovered another document with redactions that had been posted. A computer analysis, after removing the document's redaction layer, discovered the document had "originated from within the IRS itself." He said the group found the header of each page read: “THIS IS A COPY OF A LIVE RETURN FROM SMIPS. OFFICIAL USE ONLY." And that was proof that the leak originated from the IRS.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/04/National-...

[casual_slacker]

The testimony states only that documents originated within the IRS. There isn't any indication of the means in which they were released. What would be the political sense in releasing the names of donors? A rogue leaker seems more likely to me.

Testimony: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/eastman_testimon...

[roboneal]

You asked for "evidence". Obviously, this evidence requires further investigation.

[joshuahedlund]

Here you go, straight from the "outside group": http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/14/irs-sent-confidential-info...

[casual_slacker]

Here's the original source from your article:

http://www.propublica.org/article/irs-office-that-targeted-t...

I'm not convinced it's a targeting of opposing political groups by the white house though. If Propublica requested papers, and got them even if they shouldn't have, that's a bureaucratic error.

[pekk]

Strangely, "no big deal" is only the top post when it concerns open source. When it concerns the Tea Party, the top post is some political rant.

[adestefan]

People complain that government doesn't do a good enough job, but then people complain when government tries to do a better job.

[sigzero]

"targeting" equals "tries" now? Okie dokie.

[sliverstorm]

Totally. Just earlier today I was reading something about how the IRS taxes citizens who have their wealth abroad. People were very angry! But these are the same people who want more taxes on the rich. All I could think was, 'Hold up a second guys, aren't you familiar with the key ways the rich avoid taxes?'

[snogglethorpe]

The thing is, the IRS "taxes citizens who have their wealth abroad" even if they have no significant financial/business links with the U.S. (they live/work/invest entirely outside the U.S.), and even if they aren't wealthy...

I'm all for catching tax cheats when that's actually what's going on, but the IRS policies here are often just downright douchey...

[untog]

That's a little different. If you moved to Europe, took a job in Europe, lived in Europe and paid taxes in Europe, you'd STILL have to pay US tax. Very few other countries do that.

[sliverstorm]

Only if you make $100k+ though, from what I've read. You get an exemption if you make less than that, I believe?

[untog]

Even still. The fact that you have to pay taxes for services you have no means to access is a little unfair.

[adestefan]

You still have access to all the services and protection provided by the US embassy and consulates.

I'm not saying that it's appropriate for someone to pay the taxes, but it's not true to say you get no services as a US citizen abroad.

[andrewflnr]

Are you really sure those are the same people? I'm guessing not.

[PencilAndPaper]

The key word being "tries". they need to be a bit more effective with their trying (if indeed they are trying to do good things).

[jpdoctor]

It's a bit bizarre honestly. Operations are all deductions, and so write off against revenue. Why would somebody take expenses off they P&L?

[ghjm]

They want to be able to take large donations from wealthy contributors, without (a) having to pay tax on them as income, or (b) having to follow the normal reporting requirements for political groups.

[jpdoctor]

> without (a) having to pay tax on them as income,

But that is my point: The expenses write off against the revenue in the biz, so there's no point in creating a separate org. There can't be sizeable income left in the separate org, or they get nailed for having assets.

> (b) having to follow the normal reporting requirements for political groups.

That's different, but I got the sense from the article that it was more about advertising than politics. FTA: In short, the IRS is concerned that some of these organizations exist simply to market companies' software, and perhaps the associated services sold alongside them.

[snowwrestler]

The tax issue actually goes the other way--individuals can take a personal tax deduction on most donations to 501c orgs, but not to for-profit companies.

[jpdoctor]

Aha, it's because they think their income will go up from donations of individuals? That makes more sense.

[malandrew]

I think a lot of things the government does would not be a big deal, if they at least told us about what they are doing and why.

Transparency goes a long long long way to resolve confusion and concern and prevent abuse.

[ryanisinallofus]

Yeah, Obama seems to have promised more of that than he was able/willing to deliver.

[dllthomas]

But those of us trying to organize funds for FLOSS projects serving the public commons have a harder time raising money. That's a big deal. It's not really new info, though perhaps more confirmed - this is what people were telling us before even the Tea Party piece of this broke.