This week the Internal Revenue Service received a 1,389 page filing demanding that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC’s) tax exempt status be retroactively revoked.  The filing, submitted by the IRmep Center for Policy and Law Enforcement, spans nearly 60 years, from the moment AIPAC’s founder left the employment of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the present.

Two core charges are:

False Charitable Purpose.  AIPAC has been investigated several times by the FBI and is currently in a civil suit over the ongoing acquisition and movement of U.S. government classified information.  The filing argues that such activities reveal AIPAC does not function as a bona fide “social welfare” organization.

Fraudulent Application for Tax Exempt Status.  AIPAC’s original application for tax exempt status contains fraudulent representations and omissions.  It fails to mention that AIPAC’s parent organization, the American Zionist Council (AZC), was shut down by a U.S. Department of Justice Foreign Agents Registration Act order in 1962.  AIPAC incorporated six weeks later and applied for tax exempt status, but failed to reveal that the majority of its startup funding came from Israel, funneled through the AZC.

Members of the public, state charity watchdogs and the law enforcement community may download and review the complaint summary at:  //www.IRmep.org/IRSAIPAC.pdf. For a DVD of the full IRS complaint and appendix, send an email and official surface mail address to info@irmep.org.

IRmep director Grant F. Smith and callers grilled IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman on National Public Radio January 1, 2010 over lax IRS enforcement toward some Israel-related nonprofits committing illegal acts overseas and violating U.S. tax laws.  Shulman assured America that, “If a charity is breaking the tax law, is engaged in activities that they are not supposed to be engaged in, we certainly will go after them. Every year we pull 501(c)(3) charity status from a number of charities. We’ve got thousands of audits going on regarding charities, and so we don’t hesitate to administer the tax laws and make sure that people are following the rules.”

According to Smith, “By publicly filing this 13909 complaint with the IRS, we encourage concerned Americans and misled donors to monitor whether the IRS takes appropriate action.  The clock is ticking.”

The Center for Policy and Law Enforcement is a unit of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington.

We wholeheartedly support and endorse this call and urge Michigan’s state and national legislators to press for this action.