Craig Engle Provides Bipartisan Answers to IRS Controversy

Arent Fox Political Law partner Craig Engle was featured in a syndicated column by Donna Brazile that focused on the inspector general’s report into the Internal Revenue Service’s mishandling of tax-exempt organizations.

In spring 2010, agents in the Cincinnati office of the IRS, which handles applications for tax-exempt status, faced a surge of filings by new advocacy groups. The decision to single out conservative groups for extra scrutiny has triggered a criminal inquiry, congressional investigations, and the departure of the IRS’s commissioner.

Ms. Brazile wrote that when considering how best to address the problem, “The bipartisan solution comes from Arent Fox, a business-oriented law firm that deals with the area where businesses and government regulations cross.” She also noted that Craig has created “numerous 501(c)(4) organizations” and that the two provided “bipartisan advice” on the IRS findings by Treasury’s inspector general, including “a failure in management that simply disregarded the proper way to regulate applications.”

In addition, Ms. Brazile reported that Craig underscored three salient factors that have been widely overlooked:

  1. The IRS has things backward: It attempts to determine if an organization is overtly political before the organization has engaged in any political activity. That is like the IRS telling you how much income tax you owe before you have earned any income.
  1. Engle recommends that nonprofits merely register with the IRS and automatically get the status of a nonprofit.
  1. Many are blaming Citizens United — but that is not right. What we need to do is see if people are complying with Citizens United. That’s two different things.

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