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Advocacy Blog
Thursday, May 25, 2006
How to Avoid an Audit: It Is All About Context
On May 24, Jack Reilly, the Internal Revenue Service's technical advisor to the director of exempt organizations,told a group of tax-exempt law practitioners that there will be no new guidance before the November elections on what constitutes "political activity" for tax-exempt organizations.
He offered some "clues" to helping organizations stay out of the way of an audit: "Context is everything," Reilly said. At the meeting, he said that before engaging in activity, exempt organizations should be asking themselves not only whether an activity obviously violates the rules of Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, but whether "it is prudent for me to do this because if someone complains, it makes me prone to examination." Additionally, the organization should remember that the IRS will be considering the overall purpose of the communication, to whom it was targeted, the--how close it was to the election--and whether it gets into an already announced position by the candidate on some issue.
Posted by Jennifer Lowe
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