IRS Denies Political influence in Gift Tax Scrutiny of 501(c)(4) Groups

Following up on this morning's post, NY Times: IRS Moves to Tax Contributions to 501(c)(4) Political Grups: Bloomberg, IRS Denies Outside Influence Sparked Gift Tax Investigations:

The IRS says the agency wasn’t pressured into investigating whether a levy on gifts should be applied to some contributions to political advocacy groups. The IRS said in a statement that it is examining contributions from five taxpayers to determine whether they should pay the gift tax on donations to the groups, which are organized as 501(c)(4) organizations. The IRS didn’t identify the donors it is investigating or the groups.

"The examinations were started by employees of the Estate and Gift Tax Unit at the IRS as part of their increased efforts in the area of non-filing of gift and estate tax returns,” IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge said in the statement. “All of the decisions involving these cases were made by career civil servants without any influence from anyone outside the IRS.”

• Los Angeles Times, IRS Signals Political Donors Could Owe Back Taxes
• Nonprofit Quarterly, IRS Begins Assessing Gift Taxes on Donations to 501(c)(4) Tax Exempts
• Politico, New Scrutiny for Tax-Exempt Political Cash
• Politico, Scrutinizing the c4s
• Reason, 501(c)(4) Donations: So Bad They Tax Them Twice
• Roll Call, IRS Eyes Big Donors: Past Gifts to Political Nonprofits May Face Taxes
• Wall Street Journal, Is IRS Eyeing Gift-Tax Rules to Rein in Nonprofits’ Political Activities?