Abstract
Tens of thousands environmental charities operate with the United States. These charities operate to “preserve, protect, and improve the environment.” Roughly half of the revenue of environmental charities is sourced directly from the public. These public donations depend, at least in part, on the organizations’ tax-exempt status, which allows donors to deduct their donations for tax purposes. Because donors take into account the after-tax cost of their donations, an environmental charity’s tax exemption encourages donors to donate more than they would if the charity lacked a tax exemption. However, an environmental organization’s tax-exempt status is tenuous and contingent on agency interpretation. The Internal Revenue Code lists eight tax-exempt purposes, none of which are environmental. Environmental organizations’ exemption arrives not through legislation but through administrative action—the IRS announced that environmental organizations fit under the exempt umbrella of “charitable” organizations, a pre-existing statutory category of qualifying tax-exempt organizations. Additionally, the value of the tax law is not limited to its substance; tax law also serves an expressive function. In its expressive function, it can encourage and discourage certain behaviors. It can, implicitly or explicitly, put the weight of government approbation behind certain organizations and classes of organizations. Tax exemption may, in fact, be more powerfully expressive than much of tax law. While much of the tax law is opaque—or even scary—to the general public, section 501(c)(3) is salient, and arguably hypersalient. Climate change has evolved into a critical and pressing issue. It is good that organizations which work to reduce climate change can avoid taxes and receive tax-deductible donations. But if the government truly wants to both signal its support for efforts to preserve the environment and ensure that environmental organizations continue to qualify for tax exemption, it must amend section 501(c)(3) to expressly allow environmental organizations to qualify. Moreover, because organizations already qualify for exemption, amending section 501(c)(3) offers the federal government a low-cost path toward disseminating its support for environmental priorities.
Recommended Citation
Samuel D. Brunson, Enumerating Environmental Exemptions in Section 501(c)(3), 43 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 98 (2025)Available at: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pelr/vol43/iss1/14