Congressional Democrats are calling on the IRS to investigate why it allows groups like the Family Research Council, a Christian hate-group that is most certainly not a church, to reclassify themselves as “churches,” presumably to avoid transparency. In FRC’s case, it’s technically an “association of churches,” but the distinction is meaningless in the eyes of the law.

The move occurred in 2020 and was exposed last month in a piece by ProPublica’s Andrea Suozzo. To make sense of what’s going on, you need to know that all non-profit groups are granted a tax-exempt status by the U.S. government. That incentivizes people to donate to them for the (theoretical) betterment of society. But there’s a simple catch: The groups have to file a Form 990 report with the IRS explaining (among other things) how much money they took in, how it was spent, and how much their top staffers made in salaries. The 990s are public documents that allow the public to keep tabs on whether non-profits are really living up to their stated missions. ...