Lobby and 501c(3) Nonprofit Organizations
Nonprofits are a lifeline for millions – for battered women, immigrants, homebound seniors, AIDS patients, the 43 million Americans without health insurance and countless other constituents who all too often fall through this nation's safety net. As government itself grows leaner, it is relying ever more heavily on nonprofits to do its work. From a standpoint of good government, the best policy would promote communication between government and its vendors.
To assist 501c(3)s in lobbying before elected officials, Congress passed and the IRS codified the "H election." By taking the H election, 501c(3)s can maintain their tax deductibility while becoming more aggressive on behalf of the disadvantaged segments of American society who come to them for social services and health care. The H election is a vital tool in a 501c(3)'s advocacy strategy.
The "H election," is crystal clear in specifying the amounts of funding that a nonprofit can expend on lobbying. Based on a sliding scale keyed to annual income, a nonprofit can spend as much as 20 percent of its revenues on lobbying. And because the regulations for the H election define lobbying rather narrowly, very little of what a nonprofit H elector does in its advocacy efforts counts as a lobbying expenditure. In short, it's difficult for a typical nonprofit to ever reach the H expenditure ceilings.
So what's the catch? There isn't one really – only that the H election requires nonprofits to keep a record of their spending so they can prove they haven't exceeded the established limits. The good news is that taking the H election could not be easier. Form 5768, which can be downloaded from the tax forms box at www.irs.gov, only asks for an organization's name, address and signature. It takes no more than 60 seconds to fill out.
This is a summary of the article "The Lobbying Law Is More Charitable Than They Think" by Jeffery Berry from The Washington Post, November 30, 2003 (p. 31-32) Jeffrey Berry is a professor of political science at Tufts University. He can be reached at Jeffrey.berry@tufts.edu
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