IRS Makes Guidance on Tax-Exempt Organizations a Priority

The Internal Revenue Service plans to make a priority of issuing guidance relating to measurement of a Section 501(c)(4)  organization's primary activity and whether it is operated primarily for the promotion of social welfare, including guidance relating to political campaign intervention, in response to recent scandals at the agency.

The IRS's 2013–2014 Priority Guidance Plan, dated August 9, contains 324 projects that are IRS priorities through June 2014, including a number of projects that apparently stem from the uproar over increased scrutiny by the IRS’s Exempt Organizations unit of political organizations applying for tax-exempt status.

Other projects on the IRS’s priority guidance list include updating Revenue Procedure 2011-33 for EO Select Check, an online search tool that allows users to select an exempt organization and check certain information about its federal tax status and filings.

Additional guidance on section 509(a)(3) supporting organizations is another project on the list, the IRS said in an email Friday to charities and nonprofits, as are final regulations under Section 4944 of the Tax Code on program-related investments, which describes taxes on investments that can potentially jeopardize a private foundation's charitable purpose.