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Pres. Obama Proposes Strict New Rules for Tea Party and Other Non-Profits

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Photo Credit: APIn an aggressive move designed to crack down on free-spending outside political groups, the Obama administration is proposing strict new rules curtailing nonprofits like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the pro-Obama Priorities USA.

The draft proposal, released Tuesday by the Treasury Department, would keep so-called social welfare 501(c)(4) nonprofits from getting a tax exemption if they engage in too much “candidate related” political activity.

The groups were at the heart of this summer’s scandal over Internal Revenue Service targeting of tea party and other conservative groups seeking tax exemptions.

The proposal is the first major response to a Treasury inspector general report in May blasting the IRS for added scrutiny of tea party conservative groups seeking tax exemption — a major scandal that led President Barack Obama to fire the acting IRS commissioner and other officials to exit the agency.

The inspector general report recommended the IRS tighten its rules.

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Obamacare Installs New Scrutiny, Fines for Charitable Hospitals that Treat Uninsured People

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Charitable hospitals that treat uninsured Americans will be subjected to new levels of scrutiny of their nonprofit status and could face sizable new fines under Obamacare.

A new provision in Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code, which takes effect under Obamacare, sets new standards of review and installs new financial penalties for tax-exempt charitable hospitals, which devote a minimum amount of their expenses to treat uninsured poor people. Approximately 60 percent of American hospitals are currently nonprofit.

Charity for the uninsured is one of the factors that could discourage enrollment in Obamacare, which requires all Americans to purchase health insurance or else face new taxes themselves from the IRS.

“It requires tax-exempt hospitals to do a community needs survey and file additional paperwork with the IRS every three years. This is to prove that the charitable hospital is still needed in their geographical area — ‘needed’ as defined by Obamacare and overseen by IRS bureaucrats,” said John Kartch, spokesman for Americans for Tax Reform.

“Failure to comply, or to prove this continuing need, could result in the loss of the hospital’s tax-exempt status. The hospital would then become a for-profit venture, paying income tax — hence the positive revenue score” for the federal government, Kartch said. “Obamacare advocates turned over every rock to find as much tax money as possible.”

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Even After Boy Scouts Allow In Homosexuals, California Votes to Strip BSA of Nonprofit Status

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Photo Credit: Rich Pedroncelli

The California Senate on Wednesday passed a bill that would revoke the Boy Scouts’ nonprofit status because the group does not allow openly gay adults to join.

The Boy Scouts of America voted last week to allow gay youths to join the organization, but it reaffirmed its ban on gay adults serving as Scout leaders.

“They are out of line with the values of California and should be ineligible for a tax benefit paid for by all Californians,” state Sen. Ricardo Lara, a Democrat, said as he introduced his bill, The Sacramento Bee reports. “SB 323 brings our laws into line with our values.”

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Study: Red States give far more to charity than Blue States

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Am I my brother’s keeper? Conservatives and churchgoers are far more likely to say “yes,” research shows. A major survey by the Chronicle of Philanthropy confirms that residents of states that lean Republican and are most religious donate more of their money to charity, while more secular regions — and areas that tend to vote Democrat — give less.

But researchers caution that churchgoers are no more generous than secular Americans when donations to religious groups are excluded.

The study, which examined Internal Revenue Service information from 2008, the most recent year for which statistics were available, ranked Utahans as the most charitable people in the U.S. Residents of the heavily Mormon state gave 10.6 percent of their discretionary income to philanthropic causes in 2008. Mississippi ranked second, with 7.2 percent going to charity. Three other states in the Bible Belt — Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina — round out the top five.

Each of the top nine states in the Chronicle report voted for John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. The seven least-generous states went for Barack Obama.

New Hampshire residents gave the least, with 2.5 percent of discretionary income going to charity. It was followed by Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, whose residents donated 2.8 percent. Residents of Rhode Island, the fifth most frugal state, gave 3.1 percent, according to the study.

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