What's A 501(C)4 Anyway?

       I don't know whether you agree with what the IRS did or didn't do or not, but it has come to light that they did do something very wrong, some time ago. Back when Congress passed the law that provided for 501(C)4 social welfare organizations, the law stated that such organizations must be exclusively social welfare groups. But the IRS decided instead to require that these organizations should be primarily focused on social welfare.
       Now you may not think so, but there's quite a big difference between exclusive and primarily. A lot of political groups realized this difference early on after the Supreme Court decided to let any corporation or extra wealthy person to spend as much as they want on elections. They realized something else. They realized they could create one of these 501(C)4 tax exempt organizations, keep the donors names under wraps and spend like crazy on political ads.
       See they can claim what they're doing is, what? Well they say it's social welfare, but what social group are they talking about? Social circles are different ya know. Now to be honest, you and I could donate as much as we want too. It would just have to be to one of these 501(C)4 groups. But all you and I could afford wouldn't buy much air time on TV. And it surely wouldn't be enough to influence one of these multimillion dollar groups, unless you've got a whole lot more than I know about.
       Well, anyway, along comes Rep. Chris Van Hollen from Maryland to sue the IRS for not adhering to the law's wording. He wants the IRS to follow the law and not make up it's own law. I think that's a pretty good idea. I've got two reasons for agreeing. First, if I decided to change the wording of a law to suit myself, I'd get arrested. Secondly it would cut out a lot of these bitter attack ads or at least let us know who's paying for them. I'll guarantee a lot of donors, especially corporations that like to do business with folks of both parties, would stop paying for these ads.
       Now there's a downside to this law suit. If the suit is successful, some groups who actually do some social welfare good, along with their political work, mostly as an incidental, might not be there to do those good works. Not many, mind you, but some. That's because very few of these organizations do any good at all for anyone but themselves.