Donald Trump's promise to strip Harvard University of its tax-exempt status prompted criticism Friday from a former Internal Revenue Service commissioner in the president's first term, who said the process would take years and need a judge's approval.
"The IRS will not allow itself to be weaponized," former IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg News. Rettig, who oversaw the agency from 2018 to 2022, was asked to respond to Trump's social media post early Friday that said: "We are going to be taking away Harvard's Tax Exempt Status. It's what they deserve!"
Trump made the announcement after weeks of threatening a change to the school's tax-exempt treatment, stepping up his attack on the Ivy League school.
Federal criminal law bars President Trump or the vice president from ordering the IRS to punish his political opponents or reward his allies. Rettig said the Treasury Department's Inspector General for Tax Administration "closely monitors and investigates efforts to possibly influence IRS operations."
The IRS cannot take any action on an organization's tax-exempt status "without conducting an appropriate examination that would provide relevant information objectively supporting such an action," Rettig said. "The IRS does not and should not conduct a 'fishing expedition' designed to hopefully uncover a relevant issue."
Organizations also have administrative and judicial appeal rights that can take years to resolve before a federal judge approves a change in tax-exempt status, he said. "Throughout that process, there are many opportunities for resolution that would not result in the removal of the tax-exempt status of an organization," he wrote.
Trump's fight with Harvard escalated after it rejected his administration's demands to reform campus policies to combat antisemitism and promote viewpoint diversity. The administration has frozen $2.2 billion in funding that supported projects including ALS and tuberculosis research.
On April 21, Harvard sued the U.S., claiming the funding freeze violated its free speech rights, and the government cannot dictate what it teaches, who it hires, and which students it admits.
In Trump's second term, four people have held the IRS commissioner's job on an acting basis.
