Liberal and progressive organizations have joined Tea Party and conservative organizations to heavily criticize the IRS’s proposed new regulations on political activity by 501(c)(4) organizations. Recall the continuing uproar over the IRS’ treatment of applications for (c)(4) status from Tea Party organizations. The IRS has justified the proposed new rules in part as the way to bring needed clarification and to eliminate arbitrary treatment in the future, but many different organizations and commentators are criticizing the proposals for going too far, wrongly suppressing views that should be allowed.

Among the commentators is the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, which, through its Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations, recently devoted much time and thought to how to improve government regulation of churches and religious charities.

In its comment to the IRS, ECFA points out how the IRS’ laudable desire to create greater certainty about what kinds of politics-related speech are permissible is likely in fact to suppress speech that religious and other organizations ought to be free to engage in as they pursue their non-electoral missions. The ECFA comment notes that although the proposed rules would only apply to (c)(4) organizations, the IRS has expressed some interest in extending some of the principles also to (c)(3) nonprofits. The ECFA comment proposes an alternative approach that would bring greater clarity and certainty while expanding, rather than contracting, the freedom of organizations to speak up about critical issues directly relevant to their missions.