Washington, D.C. — The Trump Treasury Department announced Thursday that the IRS plans to revise Form 990, the primary tax filing for nonprofits, to impose sweeping new scrutiny on civil society organizations, with particular focus on fiscal sponsorship arrangements widely used by progressive groups.
This is part of a broader, coordinated campaign by the Trump administration and its Republican allies to weaponize the federal government against organizations they oppose politically. From siccing the DOJ on the Southern Poverty Law Center for investigating the Ku Klux Klan, to using the IRS to scrutinize how civil society groups are structured and funded, the goal is the same: threaten, intimidate, and ultimately silence organizations that push back on their agenda.
Fueling this effort is the Capital Research Center, a partisan attack operation masquerading as a nonpartisan ‘research’ group, whose president has personally briefed senior White House officials on progressive nonprofits and their vulnerabilities. For years, they’ve pushed blueprints urging the IRS to impose new reporting requirements targeting fiscal sponsorship—and now that Treasury has obliged, they’re taking a victory lap. CRC produces the playbook, and the Trump administration executes it.
In response, Congressional Integrity Project Senior Advisor Kyle Herrig released the following statement:
“Donald Trump and his allies have made clear they intend to use every lever of government power to go after organizations that challenge them politically and chill dissent. This IRS action is a textbook example. It’s not about oversight—it’s about deterring philanthropy and intimidating the donors who support civil society.
“The hypocrisy is hard to ignore. This is coming from an administration that has repeatedly refused to meet basic transparency standards, including around donors tied to Trump’s own projects, while demanding disclosure from others.
“The administration is taking its cues from the Capital Research Center — a partisan operation that has spent years leveling accusations against groups based on their politics, not the facts — and is now lending those accusations the weight of federal authority.
“The targets may change, but the tactic is the same: a brazenly political effort to weaponize the government against civil society and silence dissent.”
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