The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee has released its draft tax legislation. This includes provisions that could have a significant impact on nonprofit organizations in Kentucky. One provision gives unprecedented authority to the Trump Administration or any president going forward to revoke nonprofit status - apparently without due process.
Danielle Clore is the CEO of the Kentucky Nonprofit Network. She says this provision was brought up before, but did not move through Congress. Clore said hastily taken actions by an administration could lead to serious problems for nonprofits.
“Ultimately the concern here is nonprofits who are wrongfully designated as a quote “terrorist supporting organization” would be irreparably harmed, losing the trust of their donors and the communities that they serve, and frankly that is why we opposed this legislation when we saw it as a standalone.”
She said the biggest concern here is nonprofits that are wrongfully designated as a quote “terrorist supporting organizations” because their ideologies simply do not match up with the administration.
“That's where we feel that due process is absolutely essential. I think nonprofits deserve that, I think the public deserves that, so we would want to be sure there were some changes here to make that very clear.”
Clore said wants to be sure that any enforcement action is grounded in transparency, evidence, and the rule of law.
She said Kentucky has nearly 163,000 nonprofit employee jobs potentially at risk because of federal funding uncertainty. These jobs allow hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians to work because of the support they receive from charitable nonprofits.
