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Amicus Briefs

Buckeye Institute v. IRS

CASE SUMMARY

The Center for Individual Rights, NCLA, and the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute filed this brief to emphasize that the right to anonymous association is essential to preserve a vibrant civil society where individuals feel free to support causes they believe in without fearing retaliation. This case is an opportunity for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to vindicate this bedrock principle and ensure the government cannot use tax policy as a backdoor to chill constitutional freedoms.

For decades, Congress granted tax-exempt status to charitable organizations without requiring disclosure of donor information. That changed in 1969, when Congress introduced a reporting requirement broadly obligating most tax-exempt nonprofit organizations to annually disclose the names and addresses of their “substantial contributors.” Then, in 2020, Congress eliminated this disclosure requirement for nearly all other tax-exempt entities, concluding that disclosure was not needed for enforcement and that the requirement increased compliance costs and the risk of inadvertent disclosures. Yet today, the disclosure requirement remains in force only for most, but not all, 501(c)(3) organizations—an arbitrary and constitutionally untenable distinction. This vestige of a bygone era of tax regulation imposes profound burdens on nonprofit organizations’ First Amendment rights and should be struck down.

OUR TEAM

Jacob Huebert
Senior Litigation Counsel

RELEVANT MATERIALS

NCLA FILINGS

Brief of the Center for Individual Rights, New Civil Liberties Alliance, and Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute as Amici Curiae in Support of Plaintiff-Appellant

November 26, 2025 | Read More

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