After Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) agreed to drop the “equal treatment” portion of the Charity Aid Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Act aimed at making it easier for religious organizations to get government grants, the path was cleared for the remainder of the bill (S. 476) to proceed to the Senate floor. S. 476 deals primarily with tax incentives for charitable giving and nonprofit accountability issues and was approved by the Finance Committee in February. However, controversy over the faith-based version sponsored by Santorum and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) was holding up the bill.

The scaled back version of the CARE Act (S 476) passed by the Senate Finance Committee is on a list of eleven items Senate leadership expects to take up in the next few weeks, possibly as early as the week of March 10. Once the bill reaches the floor Senators Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) will offer their comprehensive version of CARE, S 272, as an amendment. S 272 includes “equal treatment” provisions for faith-based organizations seeking grants and authorization of the Compassion Capital Fund. (See our summary).

For more information see our summary of both bills. Tax policy expert Matt Hamill of the Institute for Higher Education Policy has put together a comparison of the charitable giving portions of H.R. 7, CARE Act 2002 and 2003 and the Bush Budget for FY 04.

Nonprofits that wish to comment on changes in IRS Form 990 have until January 28 to submit their recommendations on proposed changes in the areas of fundraising, organizational accountability, foreign grants and PACs. For more information, see the OMB Watch summary of proposed changes.