obama care, may not hold true for everyone. doug? we ll see in the coming months, jim. thank you. the obama administration wants the irs to rein in tax exempt political groups. here is chief congressional correspondent mike emanuel. reporter: with congress still investigating the irs targeting of conservative groups and in the wake of the supreme court citizens united ruling on political speech by corporations, associations, and unions, the tax collection agency has proposed new rules to limit political activity of social welfare 501-c4 political organizations. mark mazer said, quote, this proposed guidance is a first critical step towards creating clear-cut definitions of political activity by tax-exempt social welfare organizations. this comes after lois lerner blamed irs employees in cincinnati for the targeting.
that is truly scandalous. we are going to have to make sure the laws are clear. today, on day 197 of the fake irs scandal, the treasury department announced that it will clarify the regulation of political activity of tax-exempt social welfare organizations. joining me is the former head of the irs exempt organizations division. and back with us julian epstein, the former minority staff director. of the house government. were you majority or minority when you were there? i was majority of the government oversight and minority chief count sell at the you the minority chief counsel at the judiciary. they were indicating the promotion of social welfare does not include candidate related
various cam pains, those groups remain untaxed under the guise of social welfare organizations. political operations funded by undiscloseded donors at least for the moment are considered to work for the cause of social welfare and that s how you get a billion dollars where you don t know where it came from or what s to become of the organization who made it happen. today the obama administration proposed new rules to specify exactly how much and what kind of political activity these wealthy nonprofit groups could engage in and still qualify as tax exempt social welfare groups. these new rules would not just set clearer limits on spending, they would prevent these groups from funding political ads that appear two months before an election. that couldn t be considered social welfare activity anymore. if these new rules are adopted, could they represent the first effective counter force against
organizations nontaxed by the federal government. they don t have the same requires as traditional political organizations to disclose where they get their money. karl rove s nonprofit group is estimated to have spent almost a billion dollars since 2010 on various financial campaigns. the group americans for prosperity prosperity, they have been spending millions as well. sheldon adelson has given tens of millions to those groups which take the millions and millions and millions of dollars especially from big dollar donor donors and they use it for various cam pains, those groups remain untaxed under the guise of social welfare organizations. political operations funded by undiscloseded donors at least for the moment are considered to work for the cause of social welfare and that s how you get a
the ambiguity is a problem. that is truly scandalous. we are going to have to make sure the laws are clear. today, on day 197 of the fake irs scandal, the treasury department announced that it will clarify the regulation of political activity of tax-exempt social welfare organizations. joining me is the former head of the irs exempt organizations division. and back with us julian epstein, the former minority staff director. of the house government. were you majority or minority when you were there? i was majority of the government oversight and minority chief count sell at the ythe minority chief counsel at the judiciary.