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The Treasury Department is tightening Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax-exempt reporting requirements in an effort to uncover nonprofit funding being used for “extremist activity” and “hiding fraud.”
The move comes days after the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit known for civil rights litigation and racial justice, was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly funneling millions to members of violent extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and the National Socialist Party of America (American Nazi Party).
“Public money and tax-exempt status demand public accountability,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote in a statement. “We are ending the days of hiding fraud, abuse and extremist activity behind complicated nonprofit arrangements.
“When bad actors misuse charitable structures, directors and officers should understand that transparency can lead to scrutiny, accountability and liability under the law.”
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The indictment against the SPLC was announced Tuesday, with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche saying the nonprofit “was doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing — not dismantling extremism but funding it,” at a subsequent news conference.
According to the SPLC’s Form 990 filing with the IRS, the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization posted roughly $129 million in total revenue in fiscal year 2024 with nearly $800 million in total assets.
The organization pushed back against the federal indictments, claiming the money given to extremist groups was spent “to gather credible intelligence” by using paid informants who operate within groups like the KKK.
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“The federal government has been weaponized to dismantle the rights of our nation’s most vulnerable people,” SPLC interim president and CEO Bryan Fair said in a video statement. “And any organization like ours that tries to stand in the breach.”
“While we no longer work with paid informants, we continue to take their safety seriously,” Fair added. “These individuals risked their lives to infiltrate and inform on the activities of our nation’s most radical and violent extremist groups.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the SPLC for comment.
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The Treasury Department plans to rein in the lack of transparency that exists surrounding 501(c)(3)s through revisions to Form 990 to clarify sponsorship arrangements that do not clearly show who is operating a project and how funds are being used.
The Treasury noted increased reporting can make it more difficult for organizations to hide behind opaque arrangements.
“Tax-exempt status is not immunity from scrutiny,” Treasury assistant secretary and acting IRS chief counsel Ken Kies wrote in a statement. “If an organization receives public funds or tax-deductible donations, it should be prepared to show who controls the money and where it goes.”
Under current Form 990 rules, nonprofits generally do not have to disclose the names of individual donors and can provide vague descriptions of entities to which payments are routed.
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Rogue actors, like Shanghai-based American tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham, are able to use nonprofits to mask flows of money.
In the case of Singham, a known Chinese Communist Party sympathizer, a Fox News Digital investigation uncovered millions of dollars had flowed from him directly to organized agitator groups across the country.
With limited reporting requirements, Singham’s money trail was difficult to trace because nonprofits are not mandated to disclose individual donor names.
In the case of the SPLC, federal authorities allege payments were originally made to fake entities, like “Fox Photography” or “Rare Books Warehouse.”
Still, those payments to the fraudulent organizations are not required to be disclosed under current Form 990 rules as individual recipients are not required to be reported.
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The gap in reporting is one of the key ways “dark money” nonprofits hide their money, which the Trump administration said is a central reason behind the plans to revise the Form 990 requirements.
“This is an important case brought by President [Donald] Trump’s administration, and we’re thankful to the president for his leadership and funding of not just the FBI and DOJ, but his commitment to go out there and wipe out fraud, conspiracy, and waste and abuse wherever it occurs, including the Southern Poverty Law Center,” FBI Director Kash Patel said on Tuesday.