New campaign finance cop: the IRS

The Post reports.

The Supreme Court’s decision this year in Citizens United, which lifted campaign spending restrictions for companies and interest groups, has indirectly thrust the Internal Revenue Service into the more prominent role of overseeing those expenditures.

. . .

The IRS has limited ability to enforce its rules. It cannot fine groups for violating their tax status, for example. Its only option is to charge taxes on specific types of expenditures or take the much bigger step of revoking a group’s tax-exempt status — a punishment often considered incommensurate with most infractions.

“The only effective tool the IRS has to use against a nonprofit is the death penalty,” said Brett Kappel, a lawyer with the firm Arent Fox.

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