Buckeye v. International Revenue Service

The Liberty Justice Center filed an amicus brief in Buckeye v. International Revenue Service urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to find that federal law requiring certain private groups to reveal their donors violates the First Amendment right to association and free speech.

Federal law requires certain 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations to file a form with the government each year, which includes an attachment disclosing the organization’s “substantial contributors”—donors who give the organization more than $5,000 during the tax year if that amount is more than 2 percent of the organization’s annual contributions. By law, these organizations cannot devote a substantial part of their activities to lobbying, cannot participate in political campaigns, and cannot use its income for the benefit of any private shareholders or individual.

Federal law does not require other tax-exempt organizations to disclosure substantial contributors. For years, by IRS regulation, some of these organizations were required to do so, but in recent years the IRS determined that it does not need such donor information to carry out its responsibilities.

In December of 2022, the Buckeye Institute filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Columbus Division, contending that mandatory collection of donor identities is not substantially related to a sufficiently important government interest and that less-intrusive, narrowly tailored alternatives exist. The suit claimed the substantial contributor disclosure requirement violates the First Amendment.

The Buckeye Institute had good reason to be concerned about the disclosure of its donors to the IRS. In 2013, the Buckeye Institute publicly opposed Medicaid expansion in Ohio, urging the governor and General Assembly to reject federal expansions. Shortly thereafter, the IRS audited the organization, leading many Buckeye donors to rightfully fear retaliation if their identities were known to the government. This led some to stop giving and others to donate anonymously (forgoing receipts and tax deductibility) producing a chilling effect.

And Buckeye Institute and other 501(c)(3) organizations rightly fear that these disclosures may become public. A few years ago, the IRS announced that it had mistakenly posted such information affecting more than 100,000 taxpayers. And media outlets have been able to obtain such information in recent years. Indeed, the Treasury Inspector General in 2014 reported that taxpayer data remained vulnerable to inappropriate and undetected disclosure.

On November 9, 2023, the district court denied the IRS’s motion to dismiss, and denied both sides’ summary judgment motions, finding that Buckeye has standing, and ordered a trial. On March 14, 2025, the Sixth Circuit granted the government’s request for an interlocutory appeal.

The Liberty Justice Center’s brief in Buckey v. IRS argues that the First Amendment protects people who join and support groups and that Supreme Court precedent shows that forcing groups to reveal their members or supporters creates a fear-based environment that prohibits some from exercising their rights. Courts should start with a presumption of privacy in association and put the burden on the government to prove it truly needs donor names and is using the least speech-restrictive method. And because the IRS says it does not need the disclosure of substantial donors of some tax-exempt organizations to carry out its responsibilities, there is no good reason why it needs this donor information from 501(c)(3) organizations.

“The First Amendment protects the right to associate with who you want and that includes donating money to organizations whose causes you supporting without being forced to disclose that information to the government or the public,” said Reilly Stephens, senior counsel and director of amicus practice at the Liberty Justice Center. “The Supreme Court recently recognized in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, that California could not require organizations to disclose donors using the same IRS form at issue here. For the same reason, the federal government cannot constitutionally require 501(c)(3) organizations to disclose their donors to the IRS.”

The Liberty Justice Center’s brief asks the appeals court to protect donor privacy and to uphold the lower court’s decision to protect the First Amendment rights of the Buckeye Institute’s supporters and donors.