Up next in 10
Jon Roland at the Austin Constitution Meetup June 18, 2013, discusses the legal and constitutional issues involved with disparate treatment of conservative groups by the IRS.
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:01
general look at the jun 18 2013
0:08
constitution beat up in austin texas the
0:12
next topic is the disparate treatment by
0:19
conservative activist groups by the IRS
0:24
in the processing of their 501 C 4
0:30
applications I need to explain a little
0:34
bit that there are two kinds of
0:37
organization actually three kinds of
0:39
organizations at play in this field the
0:43
first are 501 C 3 s that's organizations
0:51
donations to which are deductible the
0:56
second or 501 C fours in which donations
0:59
are not deductible and the third or 5 27
1:04
which are political action organizations
1:07
including political parties there are
1:12
various statutes and rules and so forth
1:16
applying to each of them but there's
1:21
also a lot of confusion about it now a
1:25
lot of people thought that they needed
1:28
to file an application with the IRS to
1:33
get a letter approving their Bible 1 c 4
1:38
status that is not correct there
1:43
requirement to do that the way that the
1:49
IRS got involved in this whole thing is
1:53
actually not from a tax statute but from
1:57
a campaign finance statute which
2:00
provided that if a if most of the
2:05
activity of a 501 C 4 was in support of
2:11
a candidate for a proposition the
2:14
candidate for public office that they
2:18
could be taxable at the lowest
2:20
prevailing corporate rate on either one
2:25
of two things either the amount they
2:28
donated or the amount that they earned
2:31
from investment income whichever was
2:35
let's not words close to these
2:38
organizations have no investment income
2:40
therefore would not be liable for a task
2:43
oh now the question arises then suppose
2:51
that they did add investment
2:53
that was substantial well they could
2:56
avoid having to pay a tax simply by
3:00
disclosing their donors if they don't
3:04
want to disclose their donors and they
3:07
won do you want to maintain their 501 c
3:10
4 status under which they're required to
3:15
disclose substantial donors to the RS
3:19
but not to the public now in fact we
3:24
have seen several cases where some of
3:27
those lists of donors that supposed to
3:30
have been kept secret by the IRS find
3:33
their way to the possession of competing
3:37
activist organizations so clearly the RS
3:41
cannot be trusted to maintain the
3:45
privacy that they're supposed to
3:47
maintain over the information they
3:49
received but it's a simple matter to
3:52
avoid the whole thing by creating an
3:55
organization not F not applying for 501
4:01
c 4 status can go through an entire
4:04
election cycle then just hold the
4:06
organization there's nothing hearing
4:10
so if you if you want to entertain
4:17
yourself catch a few from past episodes
4:21
which I think are on line of the colbert
4:26
report in which he invites on Trevor
4:31
Potter who is a leading the election law
4:36
lawyer to explain all this and it's very
4:40
funny between Colbert and potter they
4:46
can make the whole subsetting seemed so
4:49
ridiculous that you can't help but laugh
4:53
however the question is how is it that
4:59
all these groups thought they had to
5:04
apply for it and that they couldn't
5:06
conduct their activity until they got
5:10
the approval well the answer is that
5:17
it's all hopes there's no all know a lot
5:24
of subjects
5:25
that you have a violent pay income tax
5:27
but naive organizers have been
5:31
distracted and delayed in their efforts
5:33
by deception inducing them to do things
5:37
that part not required the result of the
5:40
clever defusing and suppression of
5:43
activist groups at the height of their
5:45
enthusiasm this is a classic trick of
5:49
tyranny the solution is not equal
5:53
treatment but doing away with campaign
5:56
finance statutes which only protect the
5:59
corrupt
#Politics
#Social Issues & Advocacy
#Charity & Philanthropy
#Lobbying
#Public Policy
#Constitutional Law & Civil Rights