Protecting Nonprofit Rights

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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more news

Religious Voter Guides Increase

Sep 29, 2006 by Amanda Adams*

The group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a 501(c)(3), plans on distributing at least one million voter guides before the November election. This is more of a moderate response to voter guides put out by more conservative religious groups that discuss moral values. These voter guides highlight church teachings on war, poverty, social justice, abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Secular groups have published and distributed election guides for many years now.

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California Churches Found to Have Donated to Political Campaigns

Sep 29, 2006 by Amanda Adams*

The LA Daily News reported that the nonprofit status of numerous houses of worship throughout California was put at risk when financial donations were given to political candidates that came from collection plates. These cases of campaign contributions clearly act as political campaign activity. Some church officials cited in the article claimed they were unaware of the problem until the candidate returned the money.

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Treasury Revises Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines

Sep 29, 2006 by Kay Guinane

On Sept. 29, 2006 the Treasury Department released its third version of Voluntary Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines, along with a response to public comments made on the second version, which was released in Dec. 2005. The Treasury press release refers to dialog with the nonprofit sector, but does not note that nonprofits have called for withdrawal of the guidelines as ineffective and ill-advised. OMB Watch will have a summary and analysis of the revisions posted on Oct. 2. Here are links to the new Treasury documents:

Revised Guidelines

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Challenge to BCRA Dismissed

Sep 28, 2006 by Amanda Adams*

A lawsuit by the Christian Civic League of Maine (CCLM), challenging the electioneering communications provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act was dismissed yesterday. CCLM argued that the provisions are unconstitutional; pertaining to an ad they wanted to air last spring, titled the "Crossroads." The ad identified Senator Snowe, a candidate in the June 13 primary. The court rejected the challenge because the ad campaign was on legislation that had already been voted on. Read the BNA Money & Politics (subscription required) story.

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Treasury Says Revised Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines to be Released Soon

Sep 28, 2006 by Kay Guinane

Speaking at the Council on Foundations’ (COF) International Committee on Oct. 25, 2006 Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing Patrick O’Brien said the third version of Treasury's Voluntary Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines would likely come out the next day. To date they have not been released. In May a Treasury spokesperson also indicated that changes would be coming soon, and gave a summary of likely changes.

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Statement: Law Meant to Regulate 'Sham' Issue Ads Instead Silences Citizens Groups

Sep 27, 2006 by Kay Guinane

On Sept. 25, 2006 the AFL-CIO, Chamber of Commerce, National Education Association and OMB Watch issued a statement about the impact of McCain-Feingold's "electioneering communications" rule on grassroots lobbying campaigns. The statement notes that Sept. 8, 2006 marked the beginning of a 60-day pre-election blackout period for broadcasts by nonprofits, unions and business corporations to air a message that simply asks citizens to contact representatives in Congress to vote yes or no on a bill.

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IRS Investigations of Political Activity Heat Up

As the election season gets underway, public attention has increasingly turned to the speech rights of charities and religious groups. Leaders of All Saints Episcopal Church, the Pasadena, CA church under investigation for alleged partisanship in 2004, announced they unanimously voted to refuse to comply with IRS requests, setting the stage for a legal battle that could significantly impact the rights of 501(c)(3) organizations. Two members of Congress wrote the IRS questioning its enforcement program and citing the All Saints case.

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Bipartisan Effort Supports E-Filing of Senate Campaign Contributions

The Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act (S.1508), which has yet to be reported out of committee, would require U.S. Senate candidates to file their federal campaign finance reports electronically, just like House and presidential candidates do, and many critics say it's high time. Currently, Senate candidates report on paper and then those pages of contributors are entered manually by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), a time consuming process that denies the public the right to know who is contributing to a Senator's election campaigns when it matters most -- before the election.

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Terrorism Task Force Raids Muslim Charity, Making Ramadan Giving Problematic

On Sept.18, federal agents raided the office of a Michigan-based Muslim charity. Agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) seized files, cabinets, computers, and copied documents from the headquarters of Life for Relief and Development, a humanitarian relief organization. The group, founded in 1992, has been active in sending aid to Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, Dubai, Syria, Sierra Leone, and Israel and is one of the largest American Muslim aid groups.

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Found To Have Not Supported Terrorism, Scholar Still Denied Visa

Sep 26, 2006 by Amanda Adams*

U.S. clears Tariq Ramadan of being a supporter of terrorism, but maintains that he will not be granted a visa. Ramadan is a highly regarded, leading Muslim scholar and currently a fellow at the University of Oxford. In January 2004, he was offered a position at the University of Notre Dame and was granted a specialized nonimmigrant visa, but was then informed by the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland that his visa had been revoked. This exemplifies a harsh consequence for giving to a charity with alleged connections to Hamas, before Hamas was designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

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