IRS scandal could lead to better defining of nonprofit campaign rules

Professor Donald Tobin was quoted in a Lancaster Eagle Gazette article about the need to clear up certain rules in the Internal Revenue Service in order to more accurately determine if groups can be classified as social welfare groups. He said that while most groups are easily classified into the 501(c)(4) tax-exempt category, changes throughout the years have created some more difficult decisions for the IRS. He said when groups want to engage in political activity near an election, things get tricky.

In the article, Tobin said experts have been calling for improvements to the 501(c)(4) rules for a decade because there has been abuse by entities filing for the exemption. In addition, he said the IRS has shown it has been reluctant to enforce the rules and incompetent when it tried to do so.

“We need to figure out a way to fix it so people’s faith in non-partisan enforcement in our tax laws is restored while there’s a means of assuring that those provisions are not being abused,” he said.

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