The House Ways and Means Committee asked the IRS on Tuesday to revoke the tax-exempt status of nine nonprofit organizations that backed anti-Israel protests on college campuses. 

Tax-exempt status can be revoked if the organization has broken the law, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) detailed the ways that these organizations did so in a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel.

The organizations promoted civil disobedience and may have also been involved in the fiscal sponsorship of foreign terror groups, Smith said.

He also said that the organizations had "no discernable charitable purpose."

"Rightfully outraged"

"American taxpayers are rightfully outraged by what has transpired on American college campuses this past year, and they are even more disgusted to learn their tax dollars have subsidized the groups organizing this illegal activity at home and potentially terrorist organizations overseas,” Smith told the New York Post in a statement.

“Tax-exempt status is a privilege, not a right, and in exchange, organizations must operate for stated exempt purposes,” the chairman said.

The organizations sponsored protests and tent encampments that resulted in “harassment and assault of Jewish students, trespassing, and property vandalism,” as well as “numerous arrests,” the letter read.

New York-based  Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation (WESPAC) and the People’s Forum were on the list of organizations, along with George Soros's Tides Foundation.

Terrorist ties

Five of the groups--United Hands Relief Inc., Alliance for Global Justice, Islamic Relief USA, Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation and American Muslims for Palestine--have potential ties to terror groups.

The groups often fund other groups that carry out the protests and other anti-Israel activities. The committee has been unraveling all the connections for months since the protests took over campuses in April and led to major problems  at higher learning institutions across the country.

“The Ways and Means Committee will continue putting pressure on the Biden-Harris Administration until it stands up to the pro-Hamas wing of the Democrat Party and puts a stop to this antisemitic and anti-American behavior once and for all,” Smith vowed.

Impact on universities

The protests were subtly egged on by some college administrators, several of whom ended up stepping down after they failed to quell them quickly enough.

Liz Magill at the University of Pennsylvania was the first to resign, followed by Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Minouche Shafik at Columbia.

To be fair, it also came to light that Gay plagiarized a lot, so that might have been another reason she stepped down.

Other university heads were able to get things under control and avoided the chopping block.

The protests were long-lasting enough in a few places to spoil commencement exercises, which were scaled back or in the case of Columbia, canceled altogether.

Canceling their tax-exempt status would be an appropriate action for the IRS to take against these groups, and could help to prevent further problems.