Advancing American Freedom, leading a coalition of 140 amici from across the conservative spectrum, filed an amicus brief in The Buckeye Institute v. IRS in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. AAF’s amicus brief urges the court to uphold the district court’s decision that the IRS’s intrusive donor disclosure requirement must survive heightened scrutiny. The IRS requires certain 501(c)(3) organizations to disclose personal information about their “substantial” donors to the federal tax bureaucracy. In its amicus brief AAF argued that the right to associate, including the right to associate anonymously as enshrined in NAACP v. Alabama, is chilled by the IRS’s donor disclosure rule.
“The government has no business knowing which causes Americans support,” said AAF General Counsel J. Marc Wheat. “Both government and private information databases are routinely leaked or hacked, and conservatives have been repeatedly harassed for their support of causes the illiberal left disfavors. We urge the Sixth Circuit to strike down the IRS’s donor disclosure rule and protect the right of every American to associate anonymously.”