30 Nov 2017 8:19 pm
Why is this stuff in a tax bill?
Hidden in GOP tax bill: A plan to turn churches into dark-money spigots.
There's no doubt that the main purpose of the Republican tax bill, in both its House and Senate forms, is to slash taxes for corporations and the rich while making the rest of the country pay for it.
But Republicans are also stuffing a wish list of right-wing goals into the bill.
One provision of the House legislation that has gotten relatively little media attention has the potential to drastically remake our campaign finance system, and tilt the already unfair playing field even further toward the Republicans.
Ever since 1954, a legislative add-on known as the Johnson Amendment has prevented charities, social welfare organizations and, perhaps most importantly, churches from endorsing candidates.
Such institutions may lose their tax-exempt status if they engage in electioneering.
The House bill would functionally dismantle the Johnson Amendment, thereby opening the door to pastors endorsing candidates from the pulpits and for charities large and small -- even the Red Cross or Salvation Army -- to openly support political candidates or causes in the course of their official charitable work.
https://www.salon.com/2017/11/23/hidden ... y-spigots/
House tax plan allows unborn children to have college savings accounts.
The tax-advantaged accounts, called 529s, help people save for future college expenses.
Anyone -- a relative, a friend, or yourself -- can be named as a beneficiary at the time the account is opened.
The House legislation unveiled Thursday would allow unborn children to be named as a beneficiary as well.
It defined an unborn child as a "child in utero" and further as "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
The proposed change was praised by anti-abortion groups.
"A child in the womb is just as human as you or I yet, until now, the U.S. tax code has failed to acknowledge the unborn child -- all while granting tax breaks for those seeking an abortion under the pretense of 'healthcare,'" said Jeanne Mancini, President of March for Life, in a statement.
Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, blasted the move, suggesting that defining an unborn child in the tax code would end up restricting access to abortion.
"It is absurd that House Republican leaders would use a tax bill to try to advance their agenda to undermine access to safe, legal abortion," said Dana Singiser, Vice President for Public Policy and Government Affairs at Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/03/pf/coll ... index.html