After years of waiting in limbo for coveted tax-exempt status, True the Vote has finally been granted such designation. But despite the peace offering from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Department of Justice (DOJ), the organization has no intention of backing down from the government, planning to put up a fight until wrongs are righted.
The organization found itself in the middle of a scheme in which the Internal Revenue Service wrongfully targeted Tea Party and conservative groups. After the plot was uncovered, True the Vote filed a lawsuit against the IRS and Attorney General Eric Holder, with 501(c)(3) status granted late Friday per direction from the DOJ. Still, that’s not stopping the group from moving forward with the suit.
“We are pleased and relieved that the IRS and the DOJ are finally doing what should have been done three years ago, which is to recognize TTV as a charitable and educational organization, which we have always been and will continue to be,” True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht said in a press release.
Engelbrecht and True the Vote originally filed the lawsuit, True the Vote v. United States of America, in a Washington, D.C., federal district court in July. The group, which seeks to expose voter fraud and preserve election integrity, asked the court to grant the group tax-exempt status.
And though they have officially received such status, True the Vote isn’t going quietly.
“While we are glad the IRS has realized TTV’s tax exempt status should be granted and is now moving to rectify its failure to do sooner, this case is far from moot. There are still many questions to be answered…” Cleta Mitchell, lead counsel for True the Vote, said.
Such questions include: when is the IRS going to issue its letter granting tax exempt status to True the Vote? What about the costs and damages incurred by the organization for the past three years? What about the confidential and proprietary information sought from True the Vote? What about the violation of True the Vote’s constitutional rights by the IRS throughout the last three years?
“This lawsuit is about getting to the truth and we are not going to stop until we find out the answers to these and many other questions,” Mitchell added.
In the time True the Vote’s tax exempt status remained in limbo, the organization lost out on several grant opportunities, and in at least one instance, had to return funding it received from an organization.
According to The New York Times, True the Vote was awarded a $35,000 grant from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation on the pretense it would be granted tax-exempt status from the IRS. Ultimately, as such designation was never officially given, the grant was returned.
“If the IRS is right in its arguments that the IRS can violate the citizens’ constitutional rights and there is no ‘check’ on its power to do so, then the American people need to know that. I cannot believe, as an American citizen, that the IRS is above the law and I refuse to accept that a citizen has no remedy against the IRS for the kinds of things it has done to our group these past three years. This case is just getting started,” Engelbrecht said.
News of True the Vote receiving tax-exempt status comes just days before IRS official Lois Lerner announced her retirement. Lerner served as director of the IRS division that oversaw tax-exempt applications from political groups and had been on paid administrative leave since May. She notoriously pled the fifth during a Congressional hearing in May, claiming she did nothing wrong.
