Sen. Tom Cotton introduced legislation Wednesday that would ban foreign nationals from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba from serving on the boards of many nonprofit organizations, but it would exempt some major religious-right advocacy groups.
“Nonprofits that receive tax breaks should be completely free from malign foreign influence. Organizations influenced by adversarial foreign nationals should not benefit from our tax code,” declared Cotton in a press release. The bill would strip nonprofit tax status from any group with a board member who “is a citizen or national of a nation listed as a Foreign Entity of Concern.”
Notably, the last line of the press release states, “This rule would not apply to churches or a convention or association of churches.”
That exemption is wider than it sounds, because the IRS has allowed some major religious-right advocacy groups to get away with changing their tax status by calling themselves churches or associations of churches to avoid financial disclosure requirements and other forms of legal oversight and accountability. Earlier this year, Trump’s IRS gave a go-ahead for churches to use tax-exempt funds to endorse politicians, which could further enhance the value of the special treatment given to these advocacy organizations.
Right Wing Watch reported in 2018 how Focus on the Family got itself reclassified as a church during the first Trump term. Other religious-right advocacy groups that are clearly not churches or associations of churches but are enjoying the benefits of being classified that way include the Family Research Council, American Family Association, and Liberty Counsel.
Last year, more than a dozen members of Congress urged the IRS to review the Family Research Council’s classification as an “association of churches.” The letter stated, “We understand the importance of religious institutions to their congregants, and we believe that religious freedom is a cherished American value and constitutional right. We also believe that our tax code must be applied fairly and judiciously. Tax-exempt organizations should not be exploiting tax laws applicable to churches to avoid public accountability and IRS examination of their activities.”
In contrast, Cotton’s legislation would expand the unfair special treatment given Christian nationalist groups that is denied to other nonprofits.
Some religious-right groups could be affected if Cotton’s bill were to become law. The International Organization for the Family, a 501c3 tax-exempt group and parent organization to the anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion World Congress of Families, submitted a tax filing in November 2024 listing Alexey Komov as a board member. Komov has served as Russia’s representative to the World Congress of Families and reportedly helped arrange for money to flow from Putin-aligned oligarch Konstantin Malofeev to the WCF and right-wing groups across Europe. In December 2024, Komov was indicted by the U.S. Justice Department and charged with helping Malofeev “violate and evade U.S. sanctions imposed on a significant financier of Russian aggression in Ukraine.”
