CAN TRUMP EXEMPT CHARITABLE EXEMPTIONS?
No Legal Basis Seen for Trump’s Threats to Strip Exemptions
Posted on Sep. 19, 2025
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The Trump administration has no legal basis for revoking the tax exemption of groups whose views it disagrees with, despite its threats to do so following the killing of Charlie Kirk, according to multiple law professionals.
“Nothing in the Internal Revenue Code authorizes the administration to distinguish between organizations whose messages with which they agree and those whose messages they dislike,” David A. Super of Georgetown University Law Center told Tax Notes. “As long as an organization meets the Code’s broad definition of a charitable or educational purpose, the administration has no basis for challenging them.”
Stephanie Robbins of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg LLP agreed, noting that under section 7217, the executive branch is prohibited from interfering with IRS examination activities. Thus, the president “can’t legally revoke an organization’s exempt status under current law,” she said.
“My sense is that the administration is looking for ways to punish speech that it doesn’t agree with,” Robbins added.
President Trump has made repeated threats to strip organizations of their exempt status since he began his second term, but those threats ramped up after the death of Kirk, co-founder of the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA, on September 10. Administration officials have attempted to pin responsibility for Kirk’s death, and for other recent political violence, on left-leaning nonprofits.
“We’re going to go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence,” Vice President JD Vance said while hosting The Charlie Kirk Show podcast September 15.
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy, claimed on the podcast that the last message he received from Kirk called for “an organized strategy to go after the left-wing organizations that are promoting violence in this country.”
“It is a vast domestic terror movement,” Miller said. “And with God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, and dismantle, and destroy these networks.”
Super said he found those comments troubling but devoid of any legal grounds. He also noted that if a tax-exempt organization were found to be inciting violence, as the administration claims, there are avenues outside of repealing their exemption to hold them responsible.
“If any organization — for-profit or nonprofit — violates the criminal law, criminal processes are available,” Super said.
Making a List
The Washington Post reported that a senior White House official said the administration was “compiling a list” of so-called left-wing exempt organizations whose exempt status it was considering attempting to revoke.
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment, but on the podcast, Vance specifically named two organizations. He called out the “generous tax treatment” of the Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation and claimed that the foundations funded The Nation, a magazine that published an article critical of Kirk on September 12.
The Open Society Foundations, founded by billionaire George Soros, has denied any responsibility for Kirk’s murder and has said it hasn’t provided direct funding to The Nation in many years.
“The Open Society Foundations have unequivocally condemned the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk. Our thoughts are with his family and all who are mourning his loss,” a spokesperson for the group told Tax Notes. “It is disgraceful to use this tragedy for political ends to dangerously divide Americans and attack the First Amendment.”
The Ford Foundation didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
Calls to De-Escalate
Others in the nonprofit sector have also condemned the administration’s comments in recent days.
Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, published an open letter September 18 that was signed by more than 580 organizations and that called on Trump to stop the political persecution of nonprofit groups.
“Nonprofit and charitable organizations support critical services to our nation — working with faith communities, caring for vulnerable populations, upholding the Constitution, defending the rule of law and much more. Attacks on nonprofits and charities threaten that essential work happening everywhere across our country,” the letter says. “We implore the government to cease its escalation of political division, and stop the unjustified targeting of organizations and people in the wake of this terrible act of political violence.”
Diane Yentel of the National Council of Nonprofits said there’s no evidence for the administration’s accusations linking exempt organizations to political violence and accused the White House of attempting to exploit Kirk’s killing to silence nonprofit groups. “This is censorship masquerading as protection,” she said.
Meanwhile, a group of congressional Democrats on September 18 announced the No Political Enemies Act. The bill, led by Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., is aimed at stopping the punishment of not just nonprofits but also others who have spoken out against the Trump administration.
The bill text wasn’t available at press time, but according to a summary, one provision would reaffirm that agencies like the IRS cannot be “weaponized” against political enemies. “The [Justice Department], FBI, IRS, and other government agencies cannot be used to silence or target people for criticizing the government with constitutionally protected speech,” the summary says.