IRS Asked by ADL to Investigate Anti-Israel Groups

IRS Asked To INVESTIGATE Anti-Israel Groups

An Anti-Defamation League letter to the IRS requests that the agency investigate two anti-Israel nonprofit groups for “abusing their tax-exempt status.”

 

The Washington Examiner reported that the ADL wrote to the IRS on Monday to suggest that the WESPAC Foundation and Alliance for Global Justice may be breaking the law. Through fiscal sponsorship, the two organizations lend their tax-exempt status as charities to projects that the ADL warned are “engaging in activities that are contrary to public policy and raise serious concerns that we believe warrant further investigation by the IRS.”

 

“We believe it is in the interest of the IRS to understand the nature of WESPAC and AFGJ and what causes they are supporting,” ADL Chief Legal Officer Steven C. Sheinberg wrote to IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel.

 

ADL, a New York-based nonprofit fighting antisemitism, sent a 10-page letter to the IRS in July after asking New York and Arizona Attorneys General to investigate WESPAC Foundation and Alliance for Global Justice.

THE WESPAC Foundation in New York houses Students for Justice in Palestine, a nationwide group driving college anti-Israel protests. The Washington Examiner revealed that the Arizona-based AFGJ funds the Israeli-designated terrorist Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. AFGJ’s ties to Samidoun and others caused payment processors and left-wing funders to cut ties.

 

AFGJ appears to be misleading donors and regulators about its activities and charitable fund stewardship, the ADL wrote to the IRS on Monday. Sheinberg explained that AFGJ’s website doesn’t indicate how much authority it has over projects like Samidoun. The Israeli terrorist outfit works with the U.S.-designated Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

 

The ADL also voiced concerns in the letter to the IRS regarding four loans AFGJ granted to interested parties, as indicated on AFGJ’s most recent tax returns for the fiscal year ending March 2023. The tax papers show that board members and workers received loans, but the ADL stated a loan to AFGJ’s former president was not allowed by the board.

 

Sheinberg said in the letter that this transaction raises substantial questions about whether the organization is engaging in excess benefit transactions with disqualified persons that would necessitate Section 4958 excise tax imposition or tax-exempt status revocation. The ADL’s letter listed WESPAC Foundation projects tied to US antisemitic protests.

The ADL also noted WESPAC’s financial disclosure issues, some of which the Washington Free Beacon revealed. The ADL claimed WESPAC had engaged in “block reporting or ambiguous reporting” of its finances in many tax forms.