Anti-Bush remarks could cost NAACP
The NAACP, the nation's oldest and largest civil-rights organization, is incorporated under a tax-code section that prohibits participation in a political campaign. The group long has had a strained relationship with the Bush administration.
An IRS document dated Oct. 8 said that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People may have violated the restriction on political activity because it "distributed statements in opposition of George W. Bush for the presidency" at the group's annual convention in July.
The IRS asked for the cost of the convention, including a "listing of all expenses," and the "names and addresses of each board member and indicate how each voted."
Experts on the IRS said it was unusual for the agency to send such a letter to a national organization. Jan Baran, a Republican tax-and-election lawyer, said the IRS has sent cautionary letters to churches but said he could not recall a similar recent investigation.
"This shows that the IRS is increasing its monitoring of potentially improper political activities by officials of these groups," Baran said.
Bond said yesterday that he found it "Nixonian" for the administration to send such a letter a month before the presidential election, and said he believes it was designed to intimidate the group from conducting get-out-the-vote activities.
"They don't say I crossed any partisan lines — they just said I criticized the president," Bond said. "I am shocked at this effort to silence our group just before the election."
IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said in a statement defending the correspondence that "any suggestion that the IRS has tilted its audit activities for political purposes is repugnant and groundless."