November 16, 2000 | Read Time: 1 minute
By GRANT WILLIAMS
A charity improperly intervened in a political campaign by the way it allowed fund-raising letters to be signed on its behalf by a candidate for public office, the Internal Revenue Service’s national office has ruled.
The revenue service did not identify the organization under review. But an official of the Heritage Foundation in Washington confirmed that the ruling involved Heritage and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, who in 1995 was an announced candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
An advertising agency specializing in mail appeals contacted the charity in 1995 to see if it was interested in a fund-raising appeal for the organization that would be signed by the candidate, the I.R.S. said.
The charity agreed to the deal, and letters were eventually mailed that contained language that recipients would interpret as critical of the candidate’s opponent, the revenue service said. The charity ultimately assisted the candidate “by distributing statements that are very much like his campaign statements, positions, and rhetoric,” the I.R.S. said, even though the letters did not directly urge his election.
Among other things, the candidate wrote, “I want to change how Washington taxes, spends, and regulates,” and added that with the candidate’s opponent “in the White House, true reform will not come easily.”
“The fund-raising letter is inextricably tied to the election of the signatory of the letter,” the I.R.S. concluded.
The ruling did not jeopardize the Heritage Foundation’s tax-exempt status but the I.R.S. said that the group was liable for taxes on political expenditures (Technical Advice Memorandum 200044038).
