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The CLARITy Coalition supports S.4136, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code (IRS) of 1986 to terminate the tax-exempt status of terrorist-supporting organizations. S.4136 is the companion bill to H.R.6408, which passed the House of Representatives in November 2023.
Existing law allows the government to shut down charities explicitly listed as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SGATs). SGATs commit acts that violate U.S. law and are therefore within the responsibility of the U.S. Department of Justice. S.4136 would create a new category of terrorist-supporting organizations that may not be directly complicit in such acts but that otherwise support terrorist movements. The proposed legislation would not shut down this new category of terrorist-supporting organizations; it would simply deny them U.S. tax benefits.
We give two examples to demonstrate the need for such legislation. One of the Palestinians holding Israeli hostages was a “correspondent” for the tax-exempt Palestine Chronicle. Another group receiving tax-exempt status, American Muslims for Palestine, is now under investigation for terror financing. Nor are these isolated cases: Sam Westrop at Focus on Western Islamism has identified $260 million funneled to Hamas-aligned nonprofits in the United States. He notes that their IRS status allows them not only to support terror organizations abroad but also to extend their influence in American Muslim communities. It is very wrong for U.S. taxpayers to be forced to underwrite organizations that support terrorism, whether here or overseas.
Several Congressional leaders have called on U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate and shut down the Palestine Chronicle, but S.1436 offers a simpler approach that avoids limiting free speech: end its tax-free status. Critics such as the American Civil Liberties Union worry that the IRS or Treasury would apply the law capriciously or unfairly, particularly against those who support Palestinian causes. However, S.4136 contains protections against such abuse. It includes a multi-layer appeals process that starts with the Treasury secretary, then goes to the IRS, and ends with a final ruling by a U.S. district judge.
S.4136 would provide a powerful tool to combat Islamist terrorism as well as to combat Islamist influence within Muslim communities in the United States.
CLARITy (Champions for Liberty Against the Reality of Islamist Tyranny) is a global coalition founded by Muslims, ex-Muslims, academics, scholars, authors, and activists who stand for peace, democracy, liberty, and secular governance and who are deeply concerned by the continuing threat posed to these values by the actions and demands of Islamists in various places around the world.
CLARITy Coalition has expertise on the goals, content, and modus operandi of Islamism in the West and elsewhere. We are available at any time to advise Members of Congress. See more at: https://claritycoalition.org/
