of millions to many organizations. those groups which take the millions and millions and millions of dollars especially from big dollar donors and they use it for various campaigns, those groups remain untaxed under the guise of social welfare organizations. political operations funded by undisclosed 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.
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.
did the damage, mark and you do know it. let s let lars in here. let me say this. there were two accusations that that darryl ice why s committee made. we have the obligation to tell our viewers that the congression congressional oversight committee when he said he didn t get all of the information and said yes, there were in the initial screening list and they never got what the conservative groups got. i got to get lars in for a remark. they were supposed to get an answer in 180 days. some were delayed up to 27 months an they described in detail to congress what the delays do in an election year to the ability of political groups to engage in politics. you mean social welfare
c-4 tax exempt status available only to organizations engaged exclusively in social welfare. forgive me for getting out the statute. but it says concerning the social welfare organizations, that they must be operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare. yeah, that is right. in darrell issa s committee, in fact, in most congressional committees you have to beg forgiveness for actually reading the law that the hearing is about. i wouldn t want to be in your position, to look at the words exclusively, then primarily and then trying to figure it out. it seems based on the testimony today and prior testimony that the clear way forward if we re going to solve the problem, which seems to me what we should be doing from here on out is that we should solve it. let s make the 501 c-4s go back
decided to interpret as meaning that the organization is 51% engaged in social welfare. 51% is primarily, according to the lawyers. and 49% can be engaged in politics. the tax attorneys have simply made up this 51% rule. and the irs has never actually challenged them on it for decades. and the real fix to the problem is obviously you simply enforce the law as written and make 501 c-4 tax exempt status available only to organizations engaged exclusively in social welfare. forgive me for getting out the statute. but it says concerning the social welfare organizations, that they must be operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare. yeah, that is right. in darrell issa s committee, in fact, in most congressional committees you have to beg forgiveness for actually reading the law that the hearing is