IRS Finally Offers Fast-Track Approval for Tax-Exempt Groups

After months of inaction in the wake of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) conservative targeting scandal, the IRS is now seeking to rectify delayed applications for tax-exempt status through a fast-track program that allows 501 (c)(4) organizations to receive IRS approval on an expedited basis.

As Clark Hill law firm explained in a political law alert, “The new IRS proposal promises approval of tax-exempt status within two weeks for those applicants that have been pending for more than 120 days and are able to certify that they have and will spend less than 40 percent of their annual expenditures and total staff time on political activities, thus devoting 60 percent or more of their spending and time on activities that promote social welfare.”

The new IRS program offers little solace to the myriad conservative groups who were disenfranchised during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles as part of the IRS targeting scandal.

The liberal-leaning journalism group ProPublica said the IRS gave the group private tax documents belonging to conservative groups that were “not supposed to be made public” and says “no unapproved applications from liberal groups were sent to ProPublica.”

After months of congressional inquiries, myriad questions remain unanswered.

The Obama Administration has since called the matter a “phony scandal.”