Letter to the Editor of The Washington Post - Tax-Exempt Social Welfare Organizations

Letter

The Post missed the mark in its Dec. 2 editorial "For the common good," on the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) proposed guidelines regarding the candidate-related political activity of tax-exempt social welfare organizations. The Post urged the IRS to be cautious in setting boundaries on the "proportion of a social welfare group's activity that can be devoted to politics" and argued that "social welfare groups ought to be allowed some voice in political affairs."

Social welfare groups can engage in unlimited issue advocacy, which provides them ample opportunity to engage in policy-making. This will not change. Candidate-related political activities, however, are a different matter. The IRS asks the question, "How much campaign-related money should we allow social welfare groups to spend in our elections while hiding their donors?" The right answer is none.

In fact, the IRS already applies that standard for similar groups. Charities are prohibited from engaging in any campaign activities. The simplest solution would be for the IRS to apply that same model to social welfare organizations. This would increase transparency in our political system, ensure that the IRS is using clear standards to evaluate social welfare groups and prevent these groups from straying from their social welfare mission.

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