On December 17, 2015 Dan Weber, President of the Association of Mature American Citizens, sent a letter to the IRS on behalf of our members; strongly urging the IRS not to require Social Security numbers from those making donations to their churches. AMAC stated that this proposed rule, forcing churches and charities to gather the Social Security numbers of almost all donors was an outrageous violation of our Constitutional rights.
We are happy to report that on January 7, 2016 the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department withdrew it’s proposal to have nonprofits collect personal information, including the Social Security numbers, from its donors.
From – thedailysignal.com – By Kelsey Harkness
On Thursday, the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department withdrew a proposal that would give nonprofits the option of collecting personal information, including the Social Security numbers, from its donors.
A critic called the government’s decision to abandon the proposed rule “a huge victory for American democracy.”
“This is a huge victory for American democracy, the First Amendment and our grassroots supporters,” Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, said in a statement. “President Obama’s IRS is abandoning its blatantly heavy-handed regulation to ask charities to disclose the Social Security numbers of donors giving $250 or more annually.”
The rule, proposed in September 2014, would give nonprofits the option to collect the Social Security numbers of donors who contribute $250 or more to an organization. Many feared that the regulation would eventually become mandatory and be used to target politically unpopular nonprofits.
The framework was intended to “minimize the reporting burden” for nonprofits and to “protect donor privacy by not using the Form 990 series,” the IRS and the Treasury explained. But after receiving nearly 38,000 public comments, many of them critical, the government decided to walk back its effort.
“The Treasury Department and the IRS received a substantial number of public comments in response to the notice of proposed rulemaking,” Karen Schiller, acting deputy commissioner for Services and Enforcement, said in documents withdrawing the proposal. “Accordingly, the notice of proposed rulemaking is being withdrawn.”
Critics, including the Tea Party Patriots, worried that collecting donors’ Social Security numbers could lead to widespread abuse.
“We’ve seen that the IRS has successfully targeted organizations, and employees of the IRS have abused the power of the agency against people they perceive as political opponents,” Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, told The Daily Signal in an earlier interview. “Having more information about who supports those organizations would give them the potential to continue the abuse of power and hurt the individuals, not just the groups. That’s the danger of it.”
Tim Delaney, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, also rallied against the effort, arguing the rule could have a chilling effect on donors.
“Nonprofits have neither the financial resources nor sufficient staffing to combat hackers who will see an easy source for Social Security information,” he said. “This also creates a liability nightmare for innocent nonprofits. … To be asked to share their address, their credit card number and their Social Security number all in the same place would be enough to scare even the most committed donor to decline to give.”
Today, Delaney said, is a “good day” for the American public.
“Today is a good day for the public, for donors to the work of charitable nonprofits, and for the nonprofit community,” he said. “The Treasury Department and the IRS wisely withdrew their proposed gift substantiation rules after hearing from almost 38,000 Americans who filed comments in opposition to the proposal.”
Thank you, AMAC, for your letter of opposition to the IRS! It’s good to know you are working conservatively on behalf of your membership.
For years, my husband & I have given cash at church. However, for everyone else, we use either debit card or checks.
What a relief to know the IRS will not be mandating extra information.
BRAVO! ! ! Do these idiots who propose these ideas have any understand of HOW MUCH IS FUNDED >>>INDEPENDENTLY>>>by caring citizens of the USA via DONATIONS ? ? ? My practice of contributsions is this: IS IT TAX-DEDUCTIBLE ??? YES ???, OK, I’ll consider it. NO ??? NO WAY ! ! ! ! !
Thank you AMAC!!! Not only does it sound discriminatory, but it also leads to another avenue for identity theft by folks working for nonprofits.
Thank goodness for AMAC! The government already has more information about all of us than it has a need for. This just makes another list. I would not donate to any organization if this had been made required!
Kudos to AMAC!! You’re awesome!! We need to continue to fight for our God given rights and for our freedom. I would love to get rid of the IRS and just do a simple flat tax system where any Tom, Dick or Jane can do their own taxes.
Thank you Amac for fighting the good fight. Too bad our Government wouldn’t also. We need to clean house.
JOYCE: Thank you so much for putting it more eloquently than I could have. I am very afraid for our wonderful country, with all our freedoms and relatively peaceful lives here.
SUE
Thank you Amac, Tea Party, of which I am a proud member, and National Council of Nonprofits for fighting the good fight and standing for all Americans. I fear for my country, she’s being destroyed from the inside out. Apathy on the part of most Americans is allowing evil forces to transform her into something more like Russia & China. Obama said he would change us, make us different then our founding fathers intended based on our Constitution. We are on the brink of losing it all, it breaks my heart and wounds my soul. Freedom is not free! Over time thousands of American men and women have died to preserve this nation. I believe we are all being called at this time to take our turn and stand, confront the enemy and say I WILL NOT COMPLY!! If it means we too lose our lives, so be it. I for one will stand so my children and my grandchildren and your children will still have the “American Dream” LIBERITY May God Bless you all and God Bless America.
Only reason this was dropped is because it adversely affected too many Democrats. Simple as that.
Asking for people’s Social Security #’s is RIDICUOUS!!! Isn’t Identity Theft widespread enough! I didn’t fear retaliation of where I donate (it’s my business and I will donate to whom I want!) but I feared more places having my SSN! I’m already reluctant to give it to people that actually need it…Doctor’s, hospitals, etc! Way to go AMAC! But, really……you need my SSN for a $250 donation! We better get a Republican in 2016!!!!
Just another ploy to crush opposition. The IRS already has access to that information. All they have to do is ask 1040 filers for written receipts of donations over $250.
You can kiss your freedom off, unless conservative Americans get a backbone and backup hot air rhetoric with a lot of action that may take you out of your comfort zone.
I SHOULD HAVE ALSO written that if you vote for ALMOST ANY Democrap for Congress, the Senate or state and local office, you ARE NOT keeping your behind safe!!!
My FIRM opinion is Obummer was elected because conservatives stayed home rather than vote for the Republican!!! Stay home AGAIN because the Republican candidate IS NOT the Tea Party darling and you can kiss your behind goodbye!
That’s what they SAY in public. What will they DO in private?
What a way for the government to get IDs including SS numbers on gun rights
supports!!! Thanks to AMAC for nipping this in the bud for churches and all
non-profits. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty now as over 200 years ago.
Thanks to AMAC for their contribution in the effort, but Jenny Beth Martin with Tea Party Patriots (myself a member) did the real work.
One of the lessons learned long ago is that asking the government to do something is a waste of wind. All the petitions we are asked to sign online go nowhere and have no effect. You don’t ask the government; you tell it. And you politely add a not very subtle threat that you’ll cream them at the polls if they don’t follow your instructions. This is what makes the NRA so powerful, a lesson that Obama has yet to learn–but he will. The stupid Republican Establishment also hasn’t learned from the last two elections that running candidates against the Tea Party is a substantial act of arrogance and a waste of money. America is a free country because we finally realized there was no point in asking George III for favors, and decided to teach him a lesson instead. Don’t try to cozy up to the government; it is not your friend.
I agree with you Robert. The government is not your friend and will never care about the people of the United States of America. We the people, MUST defend our First Amendment Rights along with all the rest of course.
For others reading : With the First Amendment Congress may not make any law against an establishment of religion, or prevent the practice of religion, we have the freedom of speech, and press; and we can peaceably assemble, and petition the government with a list of grievances.
We must continue to Protect this country. Our founding fathers worked and died fighting hard to build so that we may have a fair and just government. We are the people that have the ability to continue a legacy not only for our children and grandchildren but for future generations to come. Please vote and if you don’t well, you have no reason to complain. Or donate to a campaign to support the candidate you would like to see win. Petition the government with grievances and have a petition drawn up and get it signed by the correct number of people which is stated in the US Constitution who agree with the grievance.
Sorry, Kena. As a history prof, I have to tell you that there is no such thing as a fair and just government. All governments are just gangs of people who mind other people’s business for a fat fee. The less government, the better. And in the whole history of this country, not one petition to the government has been acted on, let alone granted. It’s a completely useless exercise. The lesson: Ignore your government.
I agree with RIK and Esquire. I will not vote for a career Republican candidate. No difference between jeb bush and hillary. No more bushs’ or clintons! The career repubs are dumacrats in disguise. They lie as much as the dums. I am sick and tired of being lied to. They all think we are stupid when they lie to us!
I can’t believe this! I draw SS now after working and paying into the savings plan,(it is not an entitlement as some think) …but there needs to be some sanity in Washington to protect non profit supporters….after all we are not a military state where all our business is under scrutiny…or are /have we become one by the Obama Admin and his ruthless supporters as George Soros ,,Planned Parenthood with the original intent for developing eugenics, and Obama’s radical left and Islamic terrorists. It is time for protection against these tyrants.
I think the scope of SS has been expanded to include the idea of wealth redistribution, and has partly become an entitlement program that allows certain people to draw out way more than they put in. I believe that SS needs to be scaled back to the retirement savings plan that it was originally.
I have paid into the SS plan since 1965…, originally it was developed as a plan by the socialist president FDR when he was in office.
The Congress under the majority Democractic power in the late 1960′, after the Civil rights act, broke into the SS , then solid and fully funded, and began to use it for ALL welfare…this was not exactly what the original purpose and neither did Americans ask this be done.. but money was taken out of their paychecks to pay taxes and Fica (I wonder what the early founders of our Constitution and Bill of Rights would have said about that…it was never to be the way the Feds made it in 1914 …
The liberals Dems and Repubs Indeps and the Elite of the Northeast have tangled the nation into a mess of politics and corrupt govt that is now become a nuisance to the American people …taking every thing they can to weaken, bankrupt and cause servitude under the Serfs and Fascist of Washington DC with All it’d Houses, white, congress and Senate house with all the agencies and branches of America, no not American but Washington DC bureaucrats to rule supreme over the true citizens that have paid their way…through the procedure of becoming citizens…
tHEY ARE ALL vipers with the surreptitious demagoguery that the liberals who have associated together to bring this once great nation into a n arena of war, murder, terrorism, and confusion..it is now almost destroyed by these atheistic rebels against God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, furthermore they are selfish humanists, pagans and souls on their way to a Chtidtlrss Hell…God forgive them and God save America from Satan that these humanistic radical liberals follow.
That should have been a Devil’s Hell…God desires no one to end up in Helvsftet this life but only when we reject God and His Way of Salvation through His only begotten Son Jesus Christ the Lord.
The current “American” impostor POTUS got there by “We the People” Not getting out, voting plus burying our heads in the sand & not impeaching him. The current POTUS WIll get his way – one way or the other. Freedom is Not Free – you have to fight be vigilant, every day. I once took an oath about ” foreign and domestic enemies ” I consider a certain POTUS to be both a foreign and domestic enemy That is all I have to say.