Requiring Electronic Filing of Annual Returns of Exempt Organizations

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURPHY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be the lead Democrat on this bipartisan bill which would provide government officials with the timely information they need to prevent and punish fraud in connection with charitable solicitations and the use of charitable assets.

I want to thank my colleague and colead from Pennsylvania, Congressman Mike Kelly, for his leadership on this issue. I also want to thank the chairman, ranking member, and the members of the Ways and Means Committee which unanimously approved this bill last week.

Our bill would require charities to annually file Internal Revenue Service form 990, the form used by tax-exempt organizations, in electronic as opposed to paper format. It would also require the IRS to make these electronic filings available to the public in machine- readable format. Our legislation has been endorsed by the National Association of State Charity Officials, or NASCO, which is an association of State agencies that oversees charitable organizations.

The purpose of our bill is threefold:

First, it would help law enforcement agencies and government regulators identify, shut down, and prosecute fraudulent charitable organizations that use financial contributions for their personal benefit rather than to help those in need.

Second, it would protect American taxpayers who make generous donations to charitable organizations and deserve to feel a sense of security that their hard-earned money is being used for its intended purpose.

And third, it would help reduce the often excessive and overlapping Federal and State filing requirements applicable to charitable organizations, on which these organizations spend considerable time, money, and resources complying every year. This would enable genuine tax-exempt organizations to focus more on their charitable mission, whether that is helping wounded warriors, sponsoring cancer research, assisting victims of gun violence, or other notable causes.

I would note that, in its letter of support for this legislation, NASCO states that having electronic data for all form 990 filers, as this bill mandates, would ensure that the States have the ability to identify and stop fraudulent activity that harms charities and donors more quickly and effectively. NASCO further states that the bill could result in returning to charitable organizations significant resources that these organizations must currently devote to compliance with unnecessary government filing requirements.

In closing, I respectfully ask my colleagues in this Chamber to support the bill, and I urge my colleagues in the Senate to quickly follow suit.

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