The left-wing nonprofit racket has been running on taxpayer-subsidized goodwill for decades.
George Soros built a political empire behind the shield of a charitable designation, and nobody in Washington ever had the nerve to look too closely.
Now Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is reportedly preparing to blow the lid off the whole arrangement, and the groups in his crosshairs are scrambling.
What Bessent and the IRS Are Building
Three sources familiar with internal Treasury Department deliberations told the New York Post that Bessent and the IRS could revoke the tax-free status of left-wing nonprofits including George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Bessent’s inner circle is drafting a blueprint that could ultimately strip non-compliant organizations of their 501(c)(3) status, according to two of the people familiar with the plans.
The reviews could result in massive back payments and civil penalties, the same sources said.
And the dollar amounts are not small. An analysis cited by the New York Post found that if the SPLC, CAIR, and Open Society Foundations were to all lose their tax-exempt status, roughly $165 million would be owed in combined taxes, with the Soros network accounting for $163.6 million of that figure.
The initiative leans in part on a 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump targeting nonprofits operating with a “substantial illegal purpose,” paving the way for the IRS to issue fines or even strip the tax-exempt status of charities allegedly tied to political violence, protests, or radical ideologies.
Other organizations reportedly under review include the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, the anti-Amazon Athena Coalition, left-leaning watchdog MediaJustice, and the Strategic Organizing Center alongside its parent union, the SEIU.
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 Groups in the Crosshairs and What They Actually Do
The Open Society Foundations is the flagship vehicle for Soros’ political spending. Since 1979, the network has disbursed over $32 billion, with its American operations expanding dramatically in the 1990s to fund everything from criminal justice “reform” to open-borders advocacy to efforts that critics say have fueled left-wing political violence.
The SPLC has spent years labeling mainstream conservative and Christian organizations as “hate groups,” placing them in the same category as the KKK. That designation gets picked up by media, corporations, and government agencies, making the SPLC’s list a defacto blacklist against anyone the Left wants to destroy professionally. The SPLC has faced its own internal scandals, including allegations that donor money was routed in ways prosecutors have questioned. The SPLC denies wrongdoing.
CAIR presents a different set of concerns. The organization has been designated as a terror-linked group by several countries. The administration is reportedly treating CAIR differently from the domestic political groups, given the foreign-influence angle, though sources suggest fears exist inside Treasury that going after the domestic political groups first could slow down action against CAIR through legal entanglements.
That tension is real. Some administration officials have reportedly argued for delaying the formal crackdown until later in the President’s term, warning that litigation could bog down the whole effort before it produces results.
But others want it done fast. According to the report, some officials have pushed to complete “a good chunk of the crackdown” before the upcoming midterm elections.
A left-leaning organization called Protect Democracy has already sued the Treasury Department and the IRS, arguing that the Trump administration is improperly using the tax code to target organizations based on political viewpoints.
The Open Society Foundations pushed back hard. A spokesman said, “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.
Why This Matters Beyond the Headlines
The left-wing nonprofit world has operated as a parallel political infrastructure for years, funding activist groups, bankrolling protest movements, and in some cases providing cover for organized political disruption, all while enjoying the tax benefits Congress reserved for genuine charities.
The 501(c)(3) designation is not a right. It is a privilege that comes with strict conditions, including prohibitions on political campaign activity and requirements that the organization’s primary purpose be genuinely charitable. When organizations use that shield to fund political operations, launder radical ideology through a charitable veneer, or allegedly facilitate conduct connected to violence and extremism, the tax code has always provided tools to act.
What has been missing is the political will to use them.
That appears to be changing. The information about Treasury’s plans leaked to the New York Post roughly six weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent addressed delegations on the alarming rise of far-left terrorism. The timing is not accidental.
Bessent confirmed last October that Treasury had begun compiling a list of nonprofits for review. What is happening now is the next step, turning a list into an enforcement action.
The left will scream that this is political targeting. But the same people crying foul right now had nothing to say when the IRS spent years scrutinizing Tea Party groups during the Obama era, delaying their applications and burying them in paperwork for the crime of having “Patriot” or “Constitution” in their name. The selective outrage is noted.
And the legal argument cuts both ways. The tax code has always given the IRS authority to revoke the status of organizations that operate outside the bounds of legitimate charitable activity. If the Open Society Foundations, the SPLC, or CAIR have been operating as political machines behind a charitable mask, the remedy is exactly what the law has always said it is.
The harder question is whether the IRS bureaucracy, parts of which have historically been slow to move against left-aligned organizations, will actually execute. Sources close to the effort say the frustration inside Treasury over the pace of enforcement at the IRS is real and growing. “That is expected to change very soon,” one source said.
But the courts are already lining up on the other side. Protect Democracy’s lawsuit signals that any enforcement action will face immediate legal challenge, and the left has deep pockets and a friendly bench in several jurisdictions.
What Bessent appears to be building is a durable enforcement record, not just a one-time action. If the Treasury can document specific violations, tie them to the executive order’s criteria, and build cases that survive judicial review, the legal and financial exposure for these organizations becomes very serious very fast.
The Soros network alone could owe $163.6 million in back taxes if its status gets pulled. That is not a fine. That is an existential threat to the operation.
The left built a nonprofit empire on the assumption that no administration would ever actually come for it. That assumption is now being tested.
Source: New York Post, “Trump admin set to target George Soros nonprofit, Southern Poverty Law Center and CAIR in major tax crackdown: sources,” August 27, 2026
