I recall that ruling on Bob Jones University being handed down, so I do not think any other religious groups sub venting, subverting, and promoting direct attacks on USA need to have their tax-exempt status continued.
Does anyone know how accurate this report on this Jewish organization is?
Dear Readers,
http://josephdana.com/
Dana wrote:
"Readers of this website know that we have been covering the actions of the American based group Nefesh bNefesh. Our argument is that Nefesh bNefesh is encouraging settlement activity through financial incentives while enjoying the benefits of nonprofit status in the United States. Nefesh bNefesh and other organizations have been gaining political clout in Israel over the past years. Nefesh now controls North American immigration to Israel and their funding is growing despite the sour economic climate in the United States. Other organizations such as the Hebron Fund or Ir David are busy changing political facts on the ground in Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank. The United States government could easily send a message to Israel and these organizations by removing their nonprofit status. They could conduct business in the United States but not with the extra tax benefits that nonprofit status provides. Yet, this is has not happened.
Josh Nathan-Kazis covers this issue in today's Forward:
Can Tax-Free Donations Fund Settlements?
An early January announcement that Israeli authorities had approved a new Jewish settlement on the campus of an American-funded yeshiva in East Jerusalem came just weeks after President Obama issued a statement condemning new Israeli construction in the area.
The yeshiva, called Beit Orot, received nearly half a million tax-free dollars in donations from an American affiliate in 2007. And according to one expert, the group constructing the new housing is a subsidiary of Elad, a settlement organization that received $2.7 million in 2007 from its tax-exempt American affiliate.
This has raised the question: Can tax-exempt American donations be used to fund activities that are explicitly opposed to American foreign policy?
Not according to some critics, including one Arab-American advocacy organization that has undertaken a legal effort to strip the not-for-profit status of American groups that fund settlements. But legal experts question the validity of such claims, and even some American Jewish opponents of the settlement movement worry that the effort will be counterproductive.
I don't think this is a winning argument, said Pamela Mann, a former chief of the New York State Attorney General's Charities Bureau, of the claim by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (also known as the ADC) that organizations opposing the public policy of the United States should not be eligible for tax exemptions.
The notion that tax-exempt groups cannot oppose American policy is based on a 1983 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving Bob Jones University, an evangelical Christian school in Greenville, S.C. The university's not-for-profit status had been revoked by the Internal Revenue Service over a school ban of interracial relationships, and the university had sued. In its decision, the Supreme Court upheld the IRS's finding, stating that 'an institution seeking tax-exempt status must" not be contrary to established public policy."
I recall that ruling on Bob Jones University being handed down, so I do not think any other religious groups sub venting, subverting, and promoting direct attacks on USA need to have their tax-exempt status continued.
Readers of my blog: Any comments?
