Eleanor Holmes Norton Introduces Social Welfare Disclosure Bill
Purple haze all in my brainLately, things just don’t seem the sameActin’ funny but I don’t know why‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky
Social welfare organizations continue to be shrouded in an opaque legal haze, thanks to the Tea Party scandal and congressional Republicans continuing insistence that the law remain vague and undefined, especially with regard to the amount of political activity those organizations may undertake. And forget about donor disclosure. Just to be fair, I am cynical enough to think that the Democrats prefer the haze too. Or at least they don’t really mind it all that much. But if that is true, Democratic Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is an exception. Yesterday she introduced a bill that would take a teeny tiny step towards lifting some of the haze. Here is the press release:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today introduced the Increased Transparency in 501(c)(4) Organizations Act of 2024, which would require the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to make publicly available the forms organizations that self-declare under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) file with the IRS. Norton says Americans have the right to know which organizations are operating under this section of the IRC.
To be eligible for tax-exempt status under 501(c)(4), organizations, often referred to as “social welfare organizations,” must be “devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.” They can choose to apply for 501(c)(4) status from the IRS, or they can simply self-declare. Previously, organizations seeking to self-declare their 501(c)(4) status were not required even to notify the IRS of their existence. In 2015, however, the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (the PATH Act) was enacted into law. Under that law, an organization seeking to self-declare their 501(c)(4) status now must file a notice with the IRS that it is operating under this section. The PATH Act did not make the filed notices, Form 8976, subject to public disclosure. Norton’s bill would correct this oversight and mandate that the IRS publicly disclose any filed Form 8976 upon request, thus allowing the public to know which organizations operate under 501(c)(4), as they do with 501(c)(3) organizations.
Norton’s introductory statement follows.
Statement of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton on the Introduction of the
Increased Transparency in 501(c)(4) Organizations Act of 2024
July 22, 2024
Today, I introduce the Increased Transparency in 501(c)(4) Organizations Act of 2024. This bill would require the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to make publicly available the forms organizations that self-declare under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) file with the IRS. Americans have the right to know which organizations are operating under this section of the IRC.
To be eligible for tax-exempt status under 501(c)(4), organizations, often referred to as “social welfare organizations,” must be “devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.” They can apply for 501(c)(4) status, or they can self-declare. Previously, organizations seeking to self-declare were not required to notify the IRS of their existence. In 2015, however, the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (PATH Act), which required an organization seeking to self-declare to file a notice with the IRS, was enacted into law. The PATH Act did not, however, make the filed notices, Form 8976, subject to public disclosure.
The IRS has opined that Form 8976 cannot be made available under the Freedom of Information Act or other disclosure laws. This opinion creates a discrepancy between those organizations for which the IRS must make publicly available information – all Section 501(c)(3) organizations and 501(c)(4) organizations that applied for that status – and self-declared 501(c)(4) organizations. This discrepancy appears to have been inadvertently created by the PATH Act.
This bill would fix this discrepancy by requiring the IRS to publicly disclose any filed Form 8976 upon request, thus allowing the public to know which organizations operate under 501(c)(4), as they do with organizations that operate under 501(c)(3). In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allows unlimited expenditures in political campaigns by these “social welfare” organizations, greater transparency is needed.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
Baby steps, I guess.
darryll k. jones