The Left broadly dislikes charity, regarding individual benefaction and generosity as a poor substitute for overweening government action.
So it should perhaps come as no surprise that under President Obama, the Internal Revenue Service should apparently be building up a new infrastructure for making charitable contributions more difficult in the future.
The agency has proposed new regulations that would for now permit (but not require) charities to file a new annual form that reports the name, address, and Social Security number of everyone who donates more than $250.
This is presented as a “simplification” of the rules for nonprofits. But it is far more likely to complicate their administrative processes than to simplify them. At best, this is a solution to something that no one thinks is a problem. Another left-liberal tendency is to ignore the wise lesson that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
At worst, however, the IRS plan probably looks forward to a future form on which the disclosure of donor details is mandatory, and thus could prompt donations to dry up.
Under current rules, charities give donors a written acknowledgement of their gifts, which the donors can in turn show to the IRS. This system has worked fine from time immemorial. It keeps personal data between the taxpayer and the IRS, with as few weak-points as possible where it can be stolen.
The Philanthropy Roundtable, an organization created to assist donors in finding worthy charities, notes that the rules work just fine and no one in the world of philanthropy is seeking to change them.
If this proposal changes anything, though, it will be for the worse. Donors may be spooked by organizations’ demands for their Social Security numbers, given widespread identity theft. It’s bad enough already that they have to share this personal information with the government, given its incompetence in protecting its own databases. Most nonprofits do not have readily at hand the capability to store that much sensitive personal information securely.
And given the recent record of the IRS using its immense power to suppress conservative organizations, why should anyone trust that it will not improperly use the new information it is currently requesting and may in the future demand.
What’s more, as the Roundtable notes, “The IRS is violating its own advice to taxpayers about never giving out their Social Security numbers unless ‘absolutely necessary.'”
This seems like a textbook example of unnecessary bureaucratic meddling. Nothing good will come of it. The comment period for this IRS proposal closes on Dec. 16; those interested have until Wednesday to leave a comment here.
