July 26, 2001 | Read Time: 2 minutes
By ELIZABETH SCHWINN
A recent complaint to the Internal Revenue Service about a charity’s efforts to persuade companies to change their environmental policies could have a chilling effect on similar work by other charities, some experts say.
Frontiers of Freedom Institute, a Fairfax, Va., conservative organization, recently asked the I.R.S. to revoke the charity status of the San Franciscobased Rainforest Action Network, also known as RAN. Frontiers of Freedom charged that the environmental group had strayed from its self-proclaimed educational mission and was now mainly using its tax-deductible donations to pay for controversial advocacy efforts.
In recent years, the Rainforest Action Network has exerted pressure against companies that it believes destroy natural resources. Among other things, the charity has conducted sit-ins and posted banners naming companies whose practices it criticizes.
In a letter to the I.R.S., Frontiers of Freedom said that such activities were not educational but were intended to force changes in corporate behavior through civil disobedience and other actions.
Frontiers of Freedom said that the Rainforest Action Network could have chosen to be classified as a tax-exempt advocacy group under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. That designation allows organizations to focus mainly on lobbying and advocacy, but does not permit such groups to accept tax-deductible gifts.
“RAN has apparently decided that the best course of action is to have it both ways: operate as an advocacy organization and take tax-deductible contributions,” George Landrith, executive director of Frontiers of Freedom, told the revenue service.
The Rainforest Action Network’s executive director, Christopher Hatch, said he considers all of the group’s activities to be educational. He said the revenue service audited his group in 1997 and confirmed that it qualified as a charity.
Frontiers of Freedom, founded by Malcolm S. Wallop, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, said it may lodge similar complaints against other environmental groups.
