Several tea party groups got a surprise in their mailboxes earlier this month--letters from the IRS questioning their nonprofit status (apologies for the Faux News link).
In letters sent from IRS offices in Cincinnati earlier this month, chapters including the Waco (Texas) Tea Party and the Ohio Liberty Council were asked to provide a list of donors, identify volunteers, financial support for and relationships with political candidates and parties, and even printed copies of their Facebook pages.
"Some of what they (the IRS) asked was reasonable, but there were some requests on there that were strange," Toby Marie Walker, president of the Waco Tea Party told FoxNews.com. "It makes you wonder if they do this to groups like ACORN or other left-leaning groups.”
Seems that most tea party outfits are organized as 501(c)(4) organizations, a category used by "social welfare" groups. While they're allowed to engage in political activity, it can't be their primary function. However, as we all know, nearly all of these outfits are political to the core.
At least one tax law expert thinks the teabaggers' whining is much ado about nothing.
"These are standard inquiries," said Ellen Aprill, a professor who teaches tax law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "If they (the Tea Party chapters) do nothing but campaign intervention, then they have to file as a 527 organization.”
There's really no "if" about it--name ONE tea party-affiliated group that doesn't engage exclusively or primarily in campaign intervention. I didn't think so.