ALARMING

U.S. Treasury Exempts Some Nonprofits From Identifying Donors

Critics fear move will allow politically active groups like the NRA to protect “dark-money” donors.

The U.S. Treasury announced Monday that it would free some politically active nonprofit groups from a requirement to identify their financial donors, a move critics fear will allow organizations like the NRA to receive “dark-money” contributions without scrutiny. Under the new rules, labor unions, issue-advocacy organizations, veterans groups, and other organizations that do not receive tax-exempt funds will not be required to identify their donors to tax authorities. “Americans shouldn’t be required to send the IRS information that it doesn’t need to effectively enforce our tax laws, and the IRS simply does not need tax returns with donor names and addresses to do its job in this area,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement announcing the move.