Congressman Hugh L. Carey (D.N.Y.) announced today that Internal Revenue Commissioner, Donald C. Alexander is, at his request, immediately auditing the neo-Nazi National Youth Alliance of Arlington, Va., to determine why they were granted an exemption from federal income taxes. Carey called for the IRS review when columnist Jack Anderson recently disclosed that the NYA, headed by former Nazi William L. Pierce, had a major tax exemption as a result of the IRS approval of the group’s innocuous application in Oct.
A check of the application revealed that the NYA, a branch of the arch-conservative Liberty Lobby, listed itself as a group “engaged in charitable activities… helping to build character, patriotism, a sense of community, and an appreciation of the American heritage in young Americans.” The group, however, is the sponsor of anti-Semitic and anti-Black hate mail and the publisher of a magazine urging violence, bigotry and even political assassinations.
ALSO HAS REDUCED MAILING RATES
The Brooklyn Congressman said he was “thoroughly disgusted” to learn that the group had such an exemption and that the NYA had also managed to gain reduced mailing rates usually provided only for non-profit groups. Carey went on to say that he had urged the immediate investigation “to find out exactly why an organization dedicated to scurrilous activities has slipped by IRS review, while the IRS last month moved to revoke the tax exempt status of the Fair Campaign Practices Committee, a group dedicated to good government that has a distinguished list of members.”
An IRS spokesman said that periodic checks of tax exempt organizations are made to ascertain “whether they are what they say they are.” He added, however, that with 600,000 organizations under this tax exemption, the IRS finds it difficult to audit all of them. Under the tax privilege granted to the NYA, the group is “not liable for Social Security taxes, or for taxes under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA),” and is able to make deductions for federal estate gift taxes purposes.
Anderson, in his syndicated column published Dec. 26, identified Pierce as a former friend of the late George Lincoln Rockwell, “fuehrer” of the American Nazi Party. Pierce once promised there would be “a Jew hanging from every lamppost in the country.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
