{"id":7648,"date":"2023-12-12T01:54:54","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T02:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=7648"},"modified":"2023-12-12T03:01:29","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T03:01:29","slug":"new-legislation-would-revoke-tax-exempt-status-of-nonprofits-funding-hamas-other-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=7648","title":{"rendered":"New Legislation Would Revoke Tax-Exempt Status of Nonprofits Funding Hamas, Other Terrorists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/nonprofits-funding-hamas\/\">https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/nonprofits-funding-hamas\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"3024\" height=\"2016\" src=\"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Z62_0297-scaled.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Nonprofits Funding Hamas\" title=\"Nonprofits Funding Hamas\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Proposed new legislation would revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit organization that is providing material support for terrorist groups.<\/p>\n<p>The bipartisan bill, introduced by U.S. Rep. David Kustoff, R-Tenn., and U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., comes out of the House Ways and Means Committee, which unanimously approved the legislation last week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe abuse of the charitable system for support for terrorist organizations is sickening,\u201d Cliff Smith, Washington Project Director at the Middle East Forum, said in a statement. \u201cUnsuspecting donors deserve better, and the leaders of these charities who take advantage of them certainly don&#8217;t deserve to keep their charitable status.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The issue has been thrust to the forefront after the Oct. 7 attack by the terrorist group, Hamas, on Israel that left more than 1,400 dead and hundreds captured, including Americans.<\/p>\n<p>Since that attack, pro-Hamas and anti-semitic demonstrations have broken out around the country and the world. Several top U.S. universities came under fire for refusing to condemn the worst elements of those protests, and now lawmakers are considering taking a closer look at just who receives federal funds and if those funds make their way to terrorist-supporting groups.<\/p>\n<p>The committee pointed to one instance where the tax-exempt charity, the Holy Land Foundation, funneled $12.4 million to Hamas before being shut down about 20 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Committee learned of other groups, currently operating in plain sight in America, led by many of the same individuals as the Holy Land Foundation,\u201d the committee said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Federal foreign aid efforts have wrestled with this issue as well, making clear it is difficult to send financial aid to Gaza without it falling into the hands of Hamas.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the Office of Inspector General for the USAID, the federal foreign aid agency, released a \u201csituational alert\u201d earlier this year saying it has \u201cidentified this area as high-risk for potential diversion and misuse of U.S.-funded assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is USAID OIG\u2019s investigative priority to ensure that assistance does not fall into the hands of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) including, but not limited to, Hamas,\u201d the federal watchdog said.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, efforts to block funding to Hamas and other terror groups have focused on overseas work. Under the new legislation, U.S. nonprofits making that same mistake could lose their tax-exempt status.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is unconscionable that American taxpayers are forced to provide indirect support for terrorist groups, giving allied organizations and their donors generous tax breaks intended for charitable activities,\u201d Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, Coalition for Jewish Values president, said in a statement. \u201cThere is nothing charitable about supporting atrocities, and there should be no tax exemptions for terror.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It remains unclear if and when the new bill will get a vote on the House floor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur tax code should not be used to support or finance violent terrorism around the world,\u201d House Ways and Means Chair Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., said at the committee meeting on the bill last week. \u201cThis bill revokes tax-exempt status for \u2018terrorist supporting organizations,\u2019 defined as groups that have provided material support or resources to a listed terrorist organization within the past three years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/nonprofits-funding-hamas\/ Proposed new legislation would revoke the tax-exempt status of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":7650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7648"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7651,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7648\/revisions\/7651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}