WASHINGTON — About 60 charities, churches and other tax-exempt groups are being investigated for potentially breaking federal rules that bar them from participating in political activity, the Internal Revenue Service said.
Such violations would threaten their tax-exempt status, the IRS said on Oct. 29.
The investigations involve guidelines for 501(c)(3) groups, which grant tax-exempt status so long as organizations do not participate in political activities such as endorsing candidates or making campaign donations.
By law, the IRS cannot reveal names or details of investigations. It did reveal that about 20 of the groups being looked into were churches.
Heightened concerns about improper political activities this election season warranted the creation of a committee of career civil servants to look into potential political violations by tax-exempt groups, according to the agency.
Of more than 100 reports received during the past couple months, that committee found 60 cases that merited further scrutiny, the IRS said.
"Our obligation is to enforce the law, which prohibits all charities from engaging in political activities," IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said in a statement on Oct. 29.
The disclosure from the IRS came a day after Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, said the IRS was investigating his group after he criticized President Bush.
The NAACP's chairman said the group's tax-exempt status was under review by the government in an investigation he contended stemmed from a speech he gave that criticized Bush.
The IRS did not confirm that it was investigating the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization, but it strongly rejected the idea the agency would conduct an audit for political reasons.
Documents provided to the Associated Press on Oct. 28 by the office of Julian Bond, chairman of the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said IRS agents were investigating his keynote address July 11 at the NAACP's annual convention in Philadelphia.
In that speech, Bond said of the Bush administration: "They preach racial neutrality and practice racial division. They've tried to patch the leaky economy and every other domestic problem with duct tape and plastic sheets. They write a new constitution of Iraq and they ignore the Constitution here at home."
For an organization to keep its tax-exempt status, "leaders cannot make partisan comments in official organization publications or at official organizational functions," according to an Oct. 8 letter to the NAACP from the IRS office in Louisville, Ky.
An "Information Document Request" from the IRS said Bond in his remarks "condemned the administration policies of George W. Bush on education, the economy and the war in Iraq."
Bond contended the timing of the probe gave the appearance it was politically motivated.
"What seems enormously outrageous to us are the facts that condemnation and criticism are reasons that we should lose our tax exemption," Bond said in an Oct. 29 conference call. He maintained the speech was nonpartisan even though it was critical of Bush.
An IRS fact sheet provided by the agency on Oct. 29 noted, "Even activities that encourage people to vote for or against a particular candidate on the basis of nonpartisan criteria violate the political campaign prohibition."
Bond criticized the IRS for trying to limit the group's ability to express its opinions.
"Coming just weeks before the election, what other reason could there be?" Bond said Oct. 28. "We have always been nonpartisan, but we are not noncritical."
He charged that the investigation amounted to a "blatant political use of the IRS."
Federal law bars the IRS from commenting on investigations into specific tax-exempt organizations such as the NAACP. But the agency's commissioner said any investigations would be based on decisions by career civil servants and not political appointees.
"Any suggestion that the IRS has tilted its audit activities for political purposes is repugnant and groundless," Everson said in a statement.
Bond said his remarks in Philadelphia were in line with previous speeches from NAACP leaders who have criticized and praised Republican and Democratic administrations. The organization has not endorsed a candidate in this year's presidential race.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry spoke at this year's NAACP convention; Bush declined. The White House has accused the group's leaders of growing more partisan since the 2000 campaign.
At the convention, Bond criticized Bush's judicial appointments and placed blame for the federal budget deficit "squarely on the tax giveaways for the rich."
Bond encouraged blacks to vote, adding, "We know that if whites and nonwhites vote in the same percentages as they did in 2000, Bush will be re-defeated by 3 million votes," according to a transcript provided by NAACP aides.
The NAACP questioned whether timing of the audit was designed to suppress turnout of blacks and Hispanics in tomorrow's presidential election.
Kerry asked the Justice Department's civil rights division to conduct its own investigation into the IRS actions.
"If the timing of this process leads some to believe politics is at play, it could have a chilling impact on African-Americans' participation in the American political process," Kerry said in an Oct. 29 letter to assistant attorney general R. Alexander Acosta.