Ways and Means Hearing: The Cast Announced
Last week, Prof. Buckles let us know about the upcoming hearing to be held on Wednesday, May 16th courtesy of Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight of the House Ways and Means Committee. At that time, the speakers were not yet announced, although it was noted that the witnesses were by invitation only. Given Rep. Boustany’s recent activities in the tax-exempt area (such as investigating the tax-exempt status of AARP and questioning the IRS regarding the scope of its inquiries into certain Section 501(c)(4) exemption applications), I was admittedly skeptical about these hearings. The stated scope of the hearings is broad enough to encompass just about anything – including a foray into the political leanings of the IRS in the tax-exempt area. I was, as a result, some what relieved to see the list of speakers:
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Diana Aviv of Independent Sector, active in the Panel on the Nonprofit Sector’s Principles for Good Governance and Ethical Practice
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Roger Colinvaux, associate professor at Catholic University (SSRN Writings Search),
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Bruce Hopkins, well-know attorney specializing in nonprofit law, and
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Michael Regier, senior vice president of VHA, a nonprofit hospital cooperative.
It’s a fairly impressive and diverse list, so I’ll be interested to see which way this hearing goes. I think there is still some room for the political discussion, but from this list it doesn’t look like that should be the entire conversation. I’ll be up tomorrow morning to try to watch it (and blog it!) so you don’t have to.
EWW