Beijing Olympics Don't Justify Stripping IOC of Tax-Exemption

The Winter Olympic Games are underway, and it’s hard to say whether we should be excited. What would normally have been a great moment for the United States and the world, the Beijing games have been marred by China’s genocide of the Uyghur people and by many nations’ retaliatory diplomatic boycotts. In response to China’s human rights abuses, a group of bipartisan lawmakers in the House and Senate are seeking to punish the apolitical International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to hold the games in China by stripping the IOC’s nonprofit tax-exempt status. While this bill sounds good on paper, it raises numerous constitutional concerns, could set a dangerous precedent of lawmakers using the tax code to punish their political enemies, and likely would not even force the Swiss based IOC to pay more in US taxes. Read Full Article »