The New York Times inaccurately referred to a conservative nonprofit as an "advocacy group" in a Tuesday piece on organizations backing immigration reform efforts.
"[W]hen the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the Koch brothers’ political advocacy group, decided to move its signature annual conference outside Washington for the first time, it picked a spot right in [Sen. Marco] Rubio’s [(R., Fla.)] political backyard: Orlando," the piece states.
The Americans for Prosperity Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, not an "advocacy group."
The Times charge is made more serious by recent revelations that the Internal Revenue Service singled out conservative applicants for nonprofit status for additional scrutiny.
Defenders of the IRS’s practices have suggested that such groups were not engaged in activities appropriate for nonprofit groups.
IRS targeting was aimed mostly at conservative 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organizations. 501(c)(3) groups, which are educational in nature, are prohibited from engaging in political advocacy.