Oct 13, 2006 -- Tax Exemption Abuses Rampant in Abramoff Scandal: Statement of Frances R. Hill, Campaign Legal Center Director of Tax Policy

The Senate Finance Committee's Minority staff report calls for full scale investigations of these issues by the Department of Justice and by the Internal Revenue Service. Both agencies should heed this call and move forward on an expedited basis.

But these Government actions are not enough. The report should be read as a wakeup call to the exempt sector. The report, together with the earlier report of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, should become the basis of a wide ranging discussion of the misuse and abuse of tax exempt entities by members of the political class and of reforms that will eliminate the abuses while ensuring that exemption serves the important public purposes that support its continuation.

Even assuming that only a very small number of exempt entities were involved in these scandals, this kind of abuse and misuse of exempt entities by lobbyists, by Members of Congress and by the organizations' own leaders raise profound issues that transcend the immediate facts of the Abramoff matter. The issues go to the heart of the integrity of the exempt sector and the integrity of our political institutions.

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