Let’s Not Give Up Our Right to Name Names

IRSThe IRS should not be telling us what we can and cannot say. Action Alerts!
 
Recently, we told you about newly proposed IRS rules that would say what we are allowed to tell you and what not. To give just one example, we would be forced to remove every single reference to a candidate’s connection to any legislation from our website sixty days before an election—giving incumbents a free pass to introduce legislation with almost no public scrutiny.
 
If this stands, Senator Durbin would be allowed to introduce an anti-supplement bill knowing that we could not link him to it in print.
 
A new bill, released on January 15, could help. The bill, the “Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act of 2014” (HR 3865), would prohibit the IRS from enforcing its unconstitutional new rules concerning 501(c)4 nonprofits for exactly one year. This would get us past the next election, give the Ways and Means Committee time to complete its ongoing investigation into the IRS’s targeting of political groups, and provide the public with ample opportunity to learn about and weigh in on the new rules.
 
The bill is sponsored by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), who has been leading the congressional investigation and is gravely concerned about the IRS’s new rules.
 
The timing of the new IRS rules has raised many questions. Why were they released the Friday after Thanksgiving—well-known as one of the slowest media days of the year—if not to avoid public scrutiny? Why do they come just when preparations are starting for the next election? And why, in the throes of a serious scandal and under inquiry by the House’s most powerful committee, did the IRS issue rules that would seem to legalize the very discrimination they’re being investigated for?
 
First Action Alert! Ask your congressional representative to support HR 3865. Chairman Camp’s legislation would get us past the next election, give the Ways and Means Committee time to complete their investigation, and give the public the opportunity to learn about these rules and submit their comments.
 

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Second Action Alert!The IRS has no business in politics or interfering with free speech. Even if you’ve already done so, tell the agency again to rescind this political gag order and protect the right of political dissenters and organizations that represent individuals like you! Please send your message to the IRS immediately—the deadline for comments is this month!

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21 comments

  1. For keeping us aware of what is going on I thank you. We could never do all this on our own

  2. The way I read the IRS rule, ANH can say whatever it wants whenever it wants. But when ANH chooses to do so, it gives up the privilege of being a tax exempt entity. ANH’s freedom of speech is still there, but it’s tax exempt status is not. The IRS is still allowing ANH to say whatever it wants, right?

  4. I take action as you suggest, but I suspect that neither my Senators , nor my Representative, actually receive the messages. Their email sites require subject lines. Many other organizations automatically reply that I must add specific info for the message to be received. Please investigate and not ask your readers to take useless actions.

    1. Hi Marketa–Thank you for your message! No worries–our system automatically inserts a subject line in all messages (you have the ability to edit these subjects, if you’d like). Thanks!

  5. I take action as you suggest, but I suspect that neither my Senators , nor my Representative, actually receive the messages. Their email sites require subject lines. Many other organizations automatically reply that I must add specific info for the message to be received. Please investigate and not ask your readers to take useless actions.

  6. I take action as you suggest, but I suspect that neither my Senators , nor my Representative, actually receive the messages. Their email sites require subject lines. Many other organizations automatically reply that I must add specific info for the message to be received. Please investigate and not ask your readers to take useless actions.

  7. I take action as you suggest, but I suspect that neither my Senators , nor my Representative, actually receive the messages. Their email sites require subject lines. Many other organizations automatically reply that I must add specific info for the message to be received. Please investigate and not ask your readers to take useless actions.

  8. Education is tax deductable but political campaigning is not.
    For decades I have been offended by the way preachers play politics. They virtually say that one will burn in hell if they support or fail to oppose a particular candidate. They may disagree with that candidate on a single issue while the candidate may best serve the congregation’s members in every other way. That kind of preaching should not be supported with tax-deductable contributions. Membership organizations or trade groups fall into the same category when they adopt similar single-issue good-verses-evil behavior.
    Saying that Senator Joseph E. Blow has adopted a particular position is protected speech as is saying that members should contact the Senator to lobby for a different position. Saying that the Senator must be defeated, saying that his opponent must be elected or helping to organize people in that direction is also protected speech.
    The difference is that the last form of protected speech may not be paid for with tax-deductable contributions. It is obviously unfair when the Senator’s own campaign must be funded with after-tax money.

    1. Ah, so it is OK for you and your politicians to bash religious organizations for exercising their freedom to speak out, but it is not OK for the religious organizations to exercise their free speech. Hmmm.
      I was once said that our opponents don’t need nuclear weapons because the US will destroy itself by becoming an amoral society.

  9. I sent the IRS message but couldn’t find the first alert message. If there was a glitch in your email you probably can fix it.

  10. All aspects of candidates for election to Public Office must be known to electors. What bills a candidate sponsors and approves tells much about the candidate’s views. To withhold this information in any way would condemn the election to be invalid. The actual statute defines false advertising as a “means of advertisement other than labeling, which is misleading in a material respect; and in determining whether an advertisement is misleading, there shall be taken into account (among other things) not only representations made or suggested by statement, word, design, device, sound, or any combination thereof, but also the extent to which the advertisement fails to reveal facts material in the light of such representations or material with respect to consequences which may result from the use of the commodity to which the advertisement relates under the conditions prescribed in said advertisement, or under such conditions as are customary or usual.” Do not withhold information, it is against the law.

  11. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. ~Abraham Lincoln
    And another good reason to take action….Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. ~Thomas Paine
    Our freedoms here in America are being undermined in ever more obvious ways. Government continues to encroach, doing for us what we used to do for ourselves. ~Thomas Jefferson

  12. If the organization receives a tax exemption from the IRS, I think the IRS is finally trying to do what’s proper.

    1. Huh? IRS doing “…what’s right…”??? Apparently there are still far too many people who do not realize the IRS is a private corporation, established illegally by Act of Congress; to assist The Federal Reserve Bank System, also illegally/unconstitutionally enfranchised, to “…issue money…”; so that the FED could be assured of being “paid back” for currency they issued, against what can only be seen as further illegally/unconstitutionally authorized Bond approvals from Congress, for money from the People in the form of a “voluntary tax”; which is anything but within their contrived court system and enforcement.
      We can have all the so-called freedom and liberty we want, so long as we continue to agree to be slaves their system. Welcome to your bird-cage. Check AMERICA: FREEDOM TO FASCISM by movie-maker, Aaron Russo – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE8RtL3azDg
      Ron Paul, Rand Paul and others are aware: AUDIT THE FED. Without the power to issue the money they have no power to continue to corrupt this nation away from the republic form it started and flourished as.

  14. I believe alot of the people who read your Action Alert on our Right to name names did not understand what was being said.
    Our Constitution allows us free speech.
    The IRS has no business being able to say who or who can or can not be named.
    It is not able to make legislation— It is not part of Congress

  15. We DO NOT NEED MORE BILLS saying what is already in the Constitution; we need to demand Congress (entire) enforce the Constitution and demand that Congress, the President and the Supreme Court do what is in that and only that!
    Simplistic? Far from it, but that’s our job, now ain’t it, People? The problem: vested interests; criminals, personal interest vs the general Welfare. But it’s the criminals and fascist thinkers that muddy it so that what WAS intended in a Bill comes out TAINTED and PERVERTED TOWARD CORPORATE INTERESTS. These are really QUITE FEW but they do have THE MONEY which makes it seem a larger opposition than it is. Keep goin’ guys, we’re gettin’ there, little by…

  16. I disagree with your position. The IRS has every right to enforce the fact that 501c4 tax status is exclusively for charitable activities, and not just a nice way to fund political elections in secrecy.. To know who is claiming 501c4 status helps the public and the IRS to identify false claims for tax relief. It is a corruption of the law to say otherwise.

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