IFPTE Urges Congress to Protect Tax Exempt Status for Non-Profit Organizations
A bill moving through Congress currently threatens the non-profit status of non-profit organizations in the United States. The legislation, entitled Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act (H.R. 9495), would give the Secretary of the Treasury near-unilateral and broad power to strip the nonprofit status from organizations – including unions – that they deem to be providing “material support or resources” to a terrorist organization.
In a letter to House lawmakers this week urging Congress to oppose the section of the bill that gives the Treasury Secretary such unfettered authority, IFPTE wrote that, “We fully support the executive branch’s existing authority to prohibit individuals and organizations from providing material support to terrorist organizations, and the authority to prosecute those committing these serious federal offenses,” while also pointing out that, “This is an expansion of authority that could allow the IRS to explicitly target and harass nonprofit organizations using its investigative authority and give the executive branch the unchecked ability to use the threat of crippling legal fees, the stigma of the “terrorist supporting” designation, and controversy to stifle dissent and chill free speech and advocacy.” The Nonprofit Professional Employees Union-IFPTE Local 70 (NPEU) has been engaging NPEU members and is coordinating with IFPTE legislative staff to defeat the alarming and unaccountable provisions in the bill in the Senate and next year in the 119th Congress.