Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.
Under Facundo Element's own YouTube channel with Alison Aubrecht speaking on behalf of the Facundo Element organization where at the end of the video a link was provided to Facundo Element's website. In the video it discussed politics publicly with obvious political bias in support of or against a political candidate. And by doing so may have violated IRS restriction (a grey area in this instance with its video presentation but it is still obvious all around where that video was going) by making public statements of position of support or against made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. Even though at the end of the video she tells viewer to think carefully on who to vote for despite the obvious bias throughout the 7 minute long video.
For a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization it is better to protect their tax-exempt status at all cost in order to fulfill their own mission to help others in need rather than risk their tax-exempt status organization by speaking on behalf of its own organization on political campaigning in favor of or against a certain candidate. An effort to influence viewers to vote one way. It'd be a whole different story had Alison Aubrecht voiced her political opinions or expression in her own personal YouTube channel rather than under Facundo Element's own YouTube channel. When it comes to politics it'd be better to stay out of it and remain unbiased.
UPDATE: My video response on lie #1.
3 comments:
This always been fuzzy area. Specifically law states that 501c3's can't make product directly suggesting a vote for or against specific candidates or legislation. They can make products that inform others about a candidate or legislation. Take the California AB 2072 for example, the CCASDHH coalition nonprofits howled plenty about what the bill intentions were about and that did not violate the law. Same thing as what you see in the Facundo Elament video as this person is howling about Paul Ryan's lies. Another factor is money. With YouTube being free to everyone, highly likely that no monies from Facundo Elements were spent in the airing of the YouTube video. The IRS specifically looks to see if any of the 501c3 funds were consumed in the production and the dissemination of products thatminform others about specific candidates or legislation. I know of this as our group was audited twice by the IRS in the past. They told us exactly what they look for in the meeting.
I'll alert the organization to this article to let them know of possible violations.
Just watched your video with interest. I think Alison's and your version are both correct in a sense (not exactly a "version" in your case but you did leave out an important part of S & P's report). Let's go over what the report said beyond the portion you quoted.
-----
* More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.
* Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government's debt dynamics any time soon.
* The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the long-term rating to 'AA' within the next two years if we see that less reduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or new fiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general government debt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case.
------
Look closely at this: "More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned..."
S & P didn't name specific parties, but which party pushed the country to the brink of default in July 2011? Which party made American policymaking less effective, stable and predictable, as the report put it? Any neutral entity would say it's mostly the Republican party.
I do agree that Alison oversimplified things (or was being disingenuous) by leaving out the fact that S & P mentioned uncertainty over management of debt size.
Frankly, it's ridiculous for any party to use the downgrade to attack the other party, because it has turned out that S & P is almost completely irrelevant. The market has continued to act as if US Government bonds were still AAA+, grabbing them at a very low interest rate.
anony, I guess you've missed on on Clinton's Community Re-investment Act that exacerbated the whole housing bubble with the help of Dodd and Frank in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mess. Everything after that had a domino effect on the economy. Not to mention the continued spending like drunken sailors which didn't help much the financial instability.
Post a Comment