The 90-day period for public input into the IRS’ proposed new rules for Tea Party and other conservative groups to qualify for tax-exempt status is about to end. Carefully crafted to put “tea party groups out of business,” as House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) put it, the announcement was made just before Thanksgiving and then forgotten. The rules are the result of “reverse-engineering” the activities found to be most threatening to the Washington establishment, and under the new guidelines, those activities will be outlawed, come March.
Those activities include
• Voter registration drives to get out the vote
• Distribution of any material prepared by (or on behalf of) a political candidate
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