| Politics Tax-Free Like You and Me The GOP wants to protect tax-exempt organizations—until it realizes that it may want to target liberal groups one day. By David Weigel
Posted Thursday, May 16, 2013, at 10:35 PM ET  A little more than a year ago, around the time nascent Tea Party organizations started getting Proust-length questionnaires from the IRS, there emerged a scandal about political groups winning tax-exempt status. Left-wing groups. The Daily Caller shared pages of memos and anecdotes from Media Matters for America, then shared quotes from Republicans asking why a liberal press-watching organization deserved 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. "The standards for tax exemption deserve review as a matter of good stewardship on the part of Congress," Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley told the website, "and should be considered as part of any comprehensive tax reform." At least! "The collaboration that they talk about on a weekly basis with the White House means this is a political operation," shuddered Sean Hannity on his Fox News show, in one of many conservative kibitzes about the Media Matters stories. "This is not a 501(c)(3)—you know, tax-exempt organization. This sounds like a political organization and close collaboration with the White House." And this is how politicos used to talk about tax-exempt groups. Until last Friday, actually, it was ordinary to hear them decry or ridicule the 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) exemptions intended for "social welfare" but used pretty nakedly for politics. In the George W. Bush era, the NAACP was investigated on those grounds, and some conservatives executed mid-air high-fives. During the 501(c)(4) explosion of 2010, when Americans for Prosperity and American Crossroads started taking Democrats out at the knees, President ... To continue reading, click here.
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