WASHINGTON, D.C. – United States Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), today attached to the farm bill S. 937, the Protect Against Ideology-Based Targeting Act, which he introduced last week as a direct response to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeting conservative-leaning groups during the 2012 election cycle to examine their efforts in compliance with the IRS determination of a tax-exempt organization.

The Protect Against Ideology-Based Targeting Act would prohibit the IRS from developing discriminatory methodologies for organizations under or applying for 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status due to the ideologies expressed in the organizations’ names or purposes and require the semi-annual report to Congress from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration to include information about complaints of ideology-based targeting. 

During the Senate Committee on Finance hearing regarding the IRS scandal today, outgoing IRS Commissioner Steven Miller stated that he didn’t know if specific IRS rules to prevent targeting based on an organization’s ideology were currently in place. S. 937 would address this immediate need to prevent discriminating methodologies from even being developed.

“This debacle continues to intensify with each day. As we continue to get to the bottom of this wrongdoing, this amendment will prohibit additional IRS targeting based solely on ideology from occurring in the future,” said Flake.

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