Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
Abstract
For decades, the nation’s charitable and nonprofit organizations have been required to file an information return, known as the Form 990, with the Internal Revenue Service. Congress mandates that the return be made publicly available. Such information reporting, both to the IRS and to the public, is the cornerstone of the federal government’s approach to assuring that nonprofit organizations are legally compliant. The Supreme Court’s decision in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta (APF), however, casts a shadow on the constitutionality of nonprofit reporting requirements. In APF, the Court held unconstitutional California’s effort to require charities to disclose their major donors, finding that compelled disclosure rules presumptively impose a burden on First Amendment associational rights, even for confidential disclosures to the government. The Court also said that compelled disclosure rules are subject to exacting scrutiny and narrow tailoring. The federal nonprofit reporting regime therefore, post-APF, must undergo exacting scrutiny for the first time and may fail under the First Amendment.
Recommended Citation
Colinvaux, Roger, Associational Rights Versus Nonprofit Transparency: Information Reporting in the Internet Age, 2025 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1353 (2025).
