House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) wrote a letter to the IRS urging the agency to revoke the tax-exempt status of a nonprofit group founded by Stacey Abrams after it was found to have violated state election laws.
“I request that you use your authority to make this referral a priority and make certain the IRS moves quickly to examine and revoke the tax-exempt status of the New Georgia Project,” Smith wrote.
The Georgia State Ethics Commission fined the New Georgia Project, which is aimed at boosting voter registration, $300,000 for failing to disclose $4.2 million in campaign contributions and $3.2 million in expenditures during Abrams’s failed bid in the 2018 gubernatorial race.
Smith noted in his letter that the penalty on the New Georgia Project, which Abrams departed from in 2017, is “possibly the largest ethics fine ever issued in the United States.”
“The GSEC’s findings show that the New Georgia Project has participated in activities and events outside of the organization’s tax-exempt purpose and should therefore lose its tax-exempt status and be reclassified as an ‘action organization,’” Smith wrote.
The GSEC’s investigation revealed that the New Georgia Project had accepted contributions and made expenditures to advocate the campaigns of Abrams and other statewide candidates.
“While the Internal Revenue Code does allow for 501(c)(3) organizations to engage in certain nonpartisan voter education activities that do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity, including public forums and publishing voter education guides, it is clear that the New Georgia Project crossed the line into prohibited activity by intervening in the 2018 election cycle on behalf of Stacey Abrams and several other candidates,” Smith wrote.
At the time of the commission’s ruling, Aria Branch, a lawyer for the New Georgia Project, told NBC News that they were eager to move past the indiscretion.
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“While we remain disappointed that the federal court ruling on the constitutionality of the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Act was overturned on entirely procedural grounds, we accept this outcome and are eager to turn the page on activities that took place more than five years ago,” Branch said.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the New Georgia Project for comment.