Treasury Weighs Stripping Soros’ Open Society, CAIR and SPLC of Tax-Exempt Status

The Trump administration is weighing whether to strip George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations of their tax-exempt status. According to a New York Post report citing three people briefed on internal Treasury deliberations, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s inner circle is drafting a blueprint that could end with all three losing their 501(c)(3) protection, owing back taxes and paying civil penalties.

Nothing has been revoked yet, and Treasury declined multiple requests for comment from the Post. But the direction is clear, and Bessent has said so on the record.

What Treasury has actually said

The clearest statement of intent came from Bessent himself on July 16, 2026, at the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism, convened by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In remarks published by Treasury, Bessent said that “at President Trump’s direction, Treasury is expanding its efforts to identify organizations that abuse charitable and nonprofit structures as vehicles for illicit finance.”

He went further: “We are examining where tax-exempt status has been exploited, which charitable entities have become financial conduits for foreign-influence activity, and how those entrusted with stewardship of these organizations have instead enabled violence. Where the evidence leads, we will not hesitate to follow.”

Bessent then put nonprofits on the same footing as the banks Treasury already polices, saying Treasury will hold these organizations’ officers and directors accountable and that, just as financial institutions must know their clients, “they must know their grantees.” His next line: “That work is well underway.”

That is not a reporter’s paraphrase. It is the Treasury secretary, in prepared remarks, telling the charitable world that know-your-customer rules are coming for them.

The blueprint and the targets

The Post’s report, published Aug. 27, 2026, said Treasury officials are drawing up a sweeping audit of groups deemed to be abusing the tax code as part of a Trump-backed crackdown on “bogus” charities. Beyond the three headline names, officials have also scrutinized several labor-aligned and anti-corporate advocacy groups, including the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, the Athena Coalition, MediaJustice, and the Strategic Organizing Center along with its parent union, the SEIU, according to the Post’s sources.

The paper reported that the initiative leans in part on a 2025 executive order targeting nonprofits operating with a “substantial illegal purpose.” The Post did not identify the order by date. The same phrase appears in President Trump’s March 2025 order on public service loan forgiveness, which, as the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law notes, cited organizations that aid or abet violations of federal immigration law or support terrorism, among other conduct. A “substantial illegal purpose” has long been grounds for the IRS to deny or revoke a charity’s exemption.

The Post said the administration is treating each target differently. Open Society and the SPLC are being reviewed under the president’s domestic executive order. CAIR is being treated strictly as a national security target. Federal prosecutors named CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terror-financing trial, a case that involved funding for Hamas. CAIR denies any ties to illicit foreign funding or terrorist organizations. The SPLC, the Post noted, is reeling from the federal indictment of its former intelligence director; prosecutors allege the group secretly funneled donor funds to extremist informants. The SPLC has called the federal charges politically motivated and vowed to fight them.

The $165 million number

If the three groups lost their exemptions, they would be taxed at the standard 21 percent federal corporate rate. A Post analysis of their latest IRS filings found they would have owed about $165 million in federal income tax for 2024 at that rate.

Almost all of it belongs to one network. Soros’ Open Society accounts for $163.6 million of the total. The SPLC would owe about $354,000, and 17 CAIR chapters together would owe roughly $860,000. The Post itself called the combined figure a rounding error for the federal government. The point is not the revenue. The point is whether organizations that move this kind of money should keep enjoying a privilege meant for genuine charity.

Open Society, now chaired by George Soros’ son Alexander, pushed back. A spokesperson told the Post: “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 Post’s requests for comment.

The midterm clock and the lawsuits

According to the Post’s sources, some officials want “a good chunk of the crackdown” finished before the midterms, while others argue for waiting until later in the term to avoid drawn-out court fights. One source described Treasury officials as “like a dog with a bone.” Revoking a 501(c)(3) is notoriously slow, often taking years of audits, administrative appeals and tax court litigation.

The left is already in court. Protect Democracy, represented by American Oversight, sued Treasury, State, Homeland Security and FinCEN in November 2025 seeking records on the administration’s reported lists of nonprofits targeted for investigation. In September 2026, Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Raphael Warnock of Georgia wrote to Bessent and the IRS demanding the reported blueprint and the criteria used to pick organizations for examination.

Democrats now warn about the IRS being weaponized against political opponents. Conservatives remember when it actually happened: in 2013, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found the IRS had used inappropriate criteria that singled out Tea Party and other applicants based on their names or policy positions. The same people who shrugged then are alarmed now.

There is a real difference, too. Targeting a group for its name is abuse. Asking whether a tax-favored charity has funded violence, or served as a conduit for foreign influence, is exactly what the law against a “substantial illegal purpose” is for. If the evidence is there, the exemption should go. If it isn’t, the IRS process and the courts will say so.

Tax exemption is a privilege taxpayers grant to charity, and groups that bankroll chaos should not expect the rest of us to keep subsidizing it.

Editor’s note: This article covers a New York Post report from Aug. 27, 2026, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s July 16, 2026, remarks, which drew renewed attention in October 2026.

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