This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, February 26, 2014. I'm Caleb Brown.

Proposed rules at the IRS could change the way groups advocate in the public sphere,

and the rules are vague enough that many groups don't know what will trigger violations

of law.

Alan Dickerson is legal director for the Center for Competitive Politics, we spoke today.

The IRS has waited further, it seems, into regulating certain kinds of political speech but with respect to

501c4s and just for the education of the audience there's a pretty big

difference between a 501c3 nonprofit and a 501c4

organization. What is that difference? Well there's a few differences. The main one

probably the one that most people have in mind when they're talking about this is that

contributions when you think of contributing to a church or charity or something like that

and taking a tax deduction on your on your 990 that's a 501c3 That's an organization that's not in any way affected by this

potential rulemaking. What we're talking about here are 501c4 organizations, which

are so-called social welfare groups.

And what they do is they exist to advocate,

to talk about social issues, about public policy.

Your sort of classic examples would be people

like the Sierra Club who you know have an issue

or the NRA and they advocate it for it and on it and if you give money to the NRA or to the

Sierra Club you do not get a tax deduction.

But it makes sense why groups would want to associate in under that organizational form,

which is C4 refers to the IRS code that governs this sort of thing.

...