Posted on 08/18/2015 10:16:46 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
The Supreme Court is being asked to determine whether California’s ambitious Attorney General and candidate for U.S. Senate, Kamala Harris, has violated the First Amendment and federal law protecting confidential tax return information.
Harris is California’s top charity regulator, and has been delegated broad, unbridled discretion to tell charities and nonprofit advocacy groups what they must file to obtain a license to speak with potential and existing donors.
Nonprofit organizations are some of the most effective critics of government, other powerful institutions -- and ambitious politicians -- making them especially vulnerable to the desire to bully and censor them. The Lois Lerner/IRS scandal is a good example.
Harris decided to push the limits by telling charities that they may not solicit contributions unless they first file a list of their top donors, which is an extortionate prior restraint on speech. Those donors are found on a confidential “Schedule B” to the tax returns filed by nonprofits with the IRS.
As or even more importantly, what Harris is doing flies in the face of the 1958 landmark Supreme Court decision in NAACP v. Alabama. That case held that membership lists are protected by the First Amendment from demands of states and their attorneys general.
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Recent publicized violations of disclosure of confidential tax return information by the IRS -- and of course what is publicized is based only on the times that the IRS was caught -- demonstrate that even the federal service with its supposedly sophisticated guards of confidentiality is untrustworthy. It defies logic to believe that state attorneys general, a partisan elected position subject to the temptations and whims of partisan politics no matter how dedicated and professional, would have better safeguards of such confidential tax return information.
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(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
It should be noted that controversial former IRS official Lois Lerner collaborated extensively about Form 990 information and enforcement issues with state charitable solicitation officials and their umbrella organization, the National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO), an affiliate of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG).
At the same time her Tax Exempt division at the IRS was engaging in ideologically discriminatory policies, Ms. Lerner was collaborating with state officials to help “ramp up” their regulation of nonprofit organizations. As reported in the BNA Daily Tax Report (“States Ramp Up Regulation of Nonprofits – With Help from the Feds”):
The increase in federal-state cooperation is not imagined, but confirmed by both federal and state officials. According to both Lois Lerner, IRS Director, Exempt Organizations, and Mark Pacella, chief deputy attorney of the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, information sharing between the IRS and state AGs is ramping up. Over the past four years, Lerner said in April, state charity oversight officials referred 600 organizations to the IRS, and 90 percent of those referrals led to examinations.
So, it’s a leftist surprise?
Except for entities that feed, house or clothe human beings there should be ZERO nonprofits in the United States of America. Want to push your political agenda, want to save the trees or the whales or coddle illegals? Want to put real businesses out of business by competing as a nonprofit against them? Want to sue real businesses out of business because you don’t like that they won’t bake queers a wedding cake? Do it on your own dime!
The US cannot any longer afford all of these 501’s that litter the land. I have been posting about these so-called nonprofits for at least a decade here on FR. Today there multiple times the number of these outfits that there were a decade ago.
Nobody talks about this very big problem.
Donald Trump contributed to Kamala Harris twice in the past 4 years.
Inside every Liberal beats the heart of a Mini-Walter Ulbricht.
she has violated her oath of office as AG with her personal list of firearms SHE won't allow to be sold in Kalifornia
She came close to being an Obama US Supreme Court nominee
Just abolish the tax exempt status for all orgs and foundations and get it over with.
I don’t consider that door closed by any means. Ginsburg retires or dies, Harris would be first or second in line IMHO. Harris isn’t especially needed for the destruction of CA. THAT door is closed/ship has sailed, whatever analogy floats ones boat.
She might resurface. Obama is still POTUS.
The NRA was the USA’s first non-profit.
Do you really think it should have it’s non-profit status revoked?
Yep. Same with Judicial Watch, ADL, Consumers Union, Sierra Club, etc. If they don’t house, feed or clothe people they should pay taxes. Maybe add if they provide some kind of health care or are a church. But require that 85% of the money they collect go to one of the above, not in to the handlers pockets.
Or, if you would like to flip the coin, no corporation or LLC or similar entity should pay any federal income taxes. Either tax all corporations or none. But do not give a penny of government dollars to any of them as charity.
Consider the Billy Jeff Clinton Foundation. It is nothing more than a taxpayer subsidized slush fund that spits on the nonprofit laws and pays money directly to its handlers as income. How about Rainbow Coalition? National Public Radio? Green Peace? Council of Foreign Relations?
If someone has what they consider a good idea then let them pay for it. I’ve been an NRA member for years, I’ve never taken a tax deduction from it. I’d support them no matter what. I’ve been a taxpayer for many years. My money has been used to support Planned Parenthood, PETA and the ACLU. Why?
The United States of America mostly stands alone when it comes to “charities”. They don’t exist in most of the rest of the world. I believe Great Britain is behind the US in the number of charities. Mexico, for example, basically has none. It was charities from the US who went in to Mexico many decades ago and gave things to poor Mexicans that started all the problems with illegal immigration. The peasant Mexicans who had no concept of charity because it is a foreign thing to Mexicans were astounded that the gringos were playing Santa Claus. Many of these same charities educated the poor Mexicans about what other free stuff they could get if they came to the states. These bleeding hearts, using our tax dollars, sowed the seeds that eventually grew in to the problems we have today.
Tear it all down and start over.
Kamala is a racist who has a hatred for white people.
Her selective, racist enforcement of the law has hurt white people immensely.
She should be put in prison for the rest of her natural life.
This radical lefty will destroy our constitution to push her radical agenda.
Yep...
Horowitz: Trump Donated to Queen of Sanctuary Cities, Kamala Harris - See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/03/trump-donated-to-queen-of-sanctuary-cities
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