The Washington Times
House Republicans may widen IRS inquiry; lawmakers to focus on audits of conservative nonprofits
By Seth McLaughlin
Wednesday, July 24, 2013 

House Republicans are weighing a major expansion of their investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservatives by looking into the audits of nonprofit groups, potentially opening another front in the scandal. 

Several leaders of 501(c)(3) groups find it fishy that they were audited by the IRS about the same time the agency increased scrutiny of applications from tea party and conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. 

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Morton C. Blackwell, president of the Virginia-based Leadership Institute, said the audits had a chilling effect as the fear of triggering additional, time-consuming scrutiny prevented groups from participating in otherwise permissible activities during the hotly contested 2012 presidential election cycle. 

“I know of many other conservative nonprofit organizations who were audited during this period, but who wish not to reveal their identities for fear of hurting their fundraising while donors lose confidence in the tax deductibility of their donations, or for fear of inviting further, extremely expensive, IRS scrutiny,” said Mr. Blackwell, a Republican National Committee member from Virginia. 

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute and the Family Research Council say they faced IRS audits over the past two years, each of them for the first time. 

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