September 28, 2006 | Read Time: 1 minute
TAX WATCH
As the 2006 election season heats up, the Internal Revenue Service is intensifying its scrutiny of churches and charities that are involved in political campaigns.
The revenue service said it is concerned that a growing number of nonprofit groups are overstepping legal boundaries and getting involved in partisan politics.
The agency currently is investigating about 40 instances in which groups might have violated the law, said Steven T. Miller, commissioner of the IRS’s tax-exempt and government-entities division.
Under federal law, religious congregations and charities are prohibited from supporting or opposing candidates for office.
One watchdog group said it is sending 117,000 letters to churches and other houses of worship in 11 states to warn them against taking a partisan role in political campaigns. The group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said it was troubled by reports that some political organizations planned to use churches for activities such as distributing voter guides that favored one party’s candidates.
“Any activity designed to influence the outcome of a partisan election can be construed as intervention,” including distributing biased voter guides, said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, in the letter to the churches.
The tax agency examined some 90 groups over allegations of illegal political activity in the 2004 elections, and found that more than 60 of them violated the law. It revoked the tax-exempt status of four groups, forced one organization to pay a penalty, and sent warnings to the other offenders, it says. Investigations of other groups continue. As is its policy, the IRS declined to identify the groups.
