October 26, 2006 | Read Time: 1 minute
Five conservative nonprofit organizations may have violated federal tax laws by helping the Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a Senate report says.
The report by the Democratic staff of the Senate Finance Committee said that the organizations abused their tax-exempt status by laundering money and producing opinion articles for newspapers that supported the positions of Mr. Abramoff’s clients.
Mr. Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to conspiring to corrupt government officials and defrauding American Indian tribes that were his clients.
Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the Finance Committee’s top Democrat, said he is forwarding the report to the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department.
“These groups’ dealings violated the spirit, and perhaps the letter, of the laws that give charitable and social-welfare organizations a break for the good work they’re supposed to do,” Mr. Baucus said.
Three of the groups in the report are charities: Citizens Against Government Waste, the National Center for Public Policy Research, and Toward Tradition. The others, Americans for Tax Reform and the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, are social-welfare groups organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, which means they are allowed more leeway to lobby than are charities.
The nonprofit groups denied any wrongdoing and charged that the report was designed to embarrass conservative groups.
The report, “Minority Staff Report: Investigation of Jack Abramoff’s Use of Tax-Exempt Organizations,” is available online.
