The Trump administration is preparing a potential tax enforcement crackdown targeting several prominent left-leaning and politically active nonprofit organizations, including George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, according to a report published Aug. 27.
The effort is reportedly part of President Donald Trump’s broader push against what administration officials have described as “bogus charities” that may be abusing the tax code, as reported by The Post Millennial.
Treasury Department officials have been preparing for possible audits of various organizations as part of that effort, according to the report.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his aides have also been working on a plan that could strip organizations found to be out of compliance with federal tax law of their 501(c)(3) status.
That designation provides significant tax benefits to qualifying nonprofit organizations. Sources familiar with the discussions said audits could potentially result in substantial back-tax payments and financial penalties.
The reported Treasury plans rely in part on authority connected to an executive order Trump signed in 2025 targeting nonprofit organizations operating with what the order described as a “substantial illegal purpose.”
The order also addressed tax-exempt organizations alleged to have connections to violence or extremism.
One source described the Treasury Department as being like “a dog with a bone” and said organizations found to be violating tax requirements are “on borrowed time.”
“There’s a lot of internal pressure to get it done, but some people are still moving too slowly at the IRS,” the source told the Post. “That is expected to change very soon.”
The administration’s reported plans have already drawn legal opposition.
Protect Democracy, a left-leaning organization, has sued the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service, arguing that the Trump administration is improperly using the tax code to target organizations based on political viewpoints.
According to the report, some administration officials have pushed to complete “a good chunk of the crackdown” before the upcoming midterm elections.
Democrats could regain control of Congress, potentially affecting the administration’s ability to continue or expand the effort.
Others within the administration reportedly favor waiting until later in Trump’s term, citing concerns that moving too quickly could trigger lengthy court battles.
The potential enforcement action could also face significant legal challenges from the organizations involved.
According to the report, officials are weighing whether major litigation involving politically active domestic organizations could consume resources and delay efforts aimed at other groups, including foreign-connected organizations.
An analysis cited by the New York Post found that if the SPLC, CAIR and Open Society Foundations were all to lose their tax-exempt status, the organizations could collectively owe roughly $165 million in taxes.
The Open Society Foundations, part of the network funded by billionaire George Soros, would account for approximately $163.6 million of that total.
The Open Society Foundations rejected the suggestion that its tax status should be targeted for political reasons.
“Threatening any nonprofit’s tax status for political reasons would be nothing more than an illegal attempt to target and stifle work that the administration disagrees with.”
CAIR and the SPLC did not respond to the New York Post’s requests for comment.
The reported crackdown would mark another major test of how aggressively the Trump administration can use existing tax enforcement tools against nonprofit organizations it believes are failing to comply with federal law.
With the midterm elections approaching, the question now appears to be not only which groups could face audits, but whether the administration can move before the lawyers, courts, and IRS bureaucracy slow the whole thing down.
