The Center for Competitive Politics (“CCP”) respectfully submits these comments in response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) issued by the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS” or “Service”) on November 29, 20 13 . The NPRM, REG- 1 34417- 1 3, “contains proposed regulations that provide guidance to tax-exempt social welfare organizations on political activities related to candidates that will not be considered to promote social welfare.” Guidance for Tax-Exempt Social Welfare Organizations on Candidate Related Political Activities, Internal Revenue Service REG 134417-13, 78 Fed. Reg. 71535 (Nov. 29, 2013).

As a threshold matter, CCP questions whether the IRS should be engaged in the minutiae of regulating political or politically-related speech at all. If an entity with a social welfare purpose is a political committee (“PAC”) under federal or state law, it ought to be regulated as a 26 U.S.C. (“IRC”) §527 organization. If it is not, it should be regulated under 26 U.S.C. §501(c)(4). This straightforward approach would harmonize the IRS’s rules with those of the Federal Election Commission, the body entrusted by Congress with “exclusive jurisdiction” for civil enforcement of the nation’s campaign finance laws. 2 U.S.C. §437c(b)(1). This approach would recognize that in a democracy, political education not only should but must fall within the definition of “social welfare” and “educational” activities that constitute exempt activities under §501(c)(4). Nothing in the statute requires exclusion of these functions from the definition of social welfare. Finally, and most importantly, this straightforward approach offers real clarity without dragging the IRS further into the thicket of political regulation, a tangle from which it—and the Service’s reputation for the neutral, nonpartisan collection of revenue—may never recover.