The Internal Revenue Service is never particularly popular this time of year, and Politico’s Jeanne Cummings has one more ill to lay at the tax agency’s feet: The never-ending barrage of political advertising.
In recent years, groups such as Karl Rove’ Crossroads GPS have been formed as “non-profit social action organizations” under IRS regulations, allowing them to channel millions of dollars in anonymous contributions into political advertising. But to prove to the IRS that they qualify for non-profit, tax-exempt status, Cummings says, they have to balance “the millions spent on campaign ads with millions more spent on issue ads, which sound almost exactly like the campaign ads.
“The upshot: An unrelenting political cycle that isn’t likely to fade from the scene anytime soon.”