Maybe Karen Handel, the former senior vice president for public policy at the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, was just confused. According to this Corporate Counsel article, Handel recently made a speech to the Family Research Council in which she said that Planned Parenthood violated IRS regulations by actively lobbying on behalf of President Barack Obama’s reelection. Handel also reportedly suggested that if the National Rifle Association or the Family Research Council had done what she claimed Planned Parenthood did, the IRS would administer a harsh penalty.
Easy mistake, right? When much of the general public thinks of tax-exempt organizations, they generally think of 501(c)(3) charities. However, there are now 29 501(c) designations in the tax code and several other designations that can lead to tax exemption. It is easy to be confused about which organizations are allowed to do what, so in that sense, we can perhaps empathize with Handel for her error.