July 19, 2018

CUA Law Professor Roger Colinvaux was quoted in a July 17 Washington Post article regarding dark money entitled "'Dark money' groups don't need to disclose donors to IRS, Treasury says."

'Dark money' groups don't need to disclose donors to IRS, Treasury says

From: The Washington Post
Date: July 17, 2018
By: Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Jeff Stein

Nonprofits that spend money to influence elections but are not required to disclose donors to the public - called "dark money" groups by critics - no longer need to share their donors' names or addresses in their tax filings under a new Treasury rule announced Monday.

The decision was immediately heralded by free-speech advocates who have long sought to protect donors' private information. But it was rebuked by those who want to reduce the role of money in politics, who claim it would make U.S. elections more susceptible to anonymous foreign donations.

. . .

Roger Colinvaux, nonprofit tax law expert at the Catholic University of America, said the new rule "could be characterized as reinforcing the dark money loophole by taking donor information completely off the public record." The fact that the IRS had this information in the past "might have dissuaded" potential foreign actors, he said.

. . .