News

• Date: 01 October 2019
• Published date: 01 October 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30670

NONPROFIT BUSINESS ADVISOR OCTOBER 2019

12 © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company • All rights reserved

DOI: 10.1002/nba

The district court judge acknowledged that some

courts had ruled that employees didn’t engage in

protected activity by merely declining a supervisor’s

advances.

EMPLOYEE WINS ➔ However, he disagreed with

that reasoning, stating that the Title VII language that

protected an employee for complaining about an un-

lawful employment practice didn’t specify who in man-

agement that employee was required to complain to.

The judge ruled that sexual harassment had been

an unlawful employment practice for decades.

He also said the plaintiff’s oppositional activity

wasn’t just limited to communications with the super-

visor, because she had allegedly reported the harass-

ment to an HR employee before a nal termination

decision had been made.

The judge refused to dismiss the suit.

[Owen v. County of Franklin, Virginia, U.S. Dis-

trict Court for the Western District of Virginia, No.

7:17CV00205, 03/06/2019]. ■

News

Court rules against IRS on donor

disclosure rule

A federal court has ruled that the Internal Revenue

Service and U.S. Department of the Treasury violated

federal law last year when they abandoned a decades-

old policy requiring “dark money” groups and other

nonprot organizations to report information about

their major donors to the federal government.

At issue is Revenue Procedure 2018-38, which

the IRS issued in July 2018. The new policy allowed

certain types of nonprots, such as 501(c)(4) social

welfare groups and 501(c)(6) professional and trade

associations, to stop disclosing large donors—those

that gave $5,000 or more to the organization—as

required on Form 990.

According to Montana Attorney General Gurbir

S. Grewal, whose ofce sued the federal agencies on

behalf of the State of Montana in conjunction with

the State of New Jersey, the court decision stated that

the IRS acted unlawfully when it changed its policy

after powerful advocacy organizations had requested

the change and without seeking public comment. Ac-

cording to the court, the IRS “attempt[ed] to evade”

seeking the public input required by law when it

adopted a new rule that “explicitly upends” 50 years

of practice requiring donor reporting by dark money

groups, Grewal’s ofce said.

“By setting the IRS’s decision aside, the court

has ensured that the IRS will be held accountable

for its actions—and dark money groups can be held

accountable for theirs,” Grewal said in a statement.

In the court ruling, Judge Brian Morris of the U.S.

District Court in Great Falls, Mont., noted that the

court was not asked to decide on the merits of the

policy itself—the ruling only addresses the process

by which the IRS developed and issued the guidance,

which the court found to be in violation of the Ad-

ministrative Procedure Act. It is unclear if the IRS

will appeal the decision.

Wells Fargo launches new

housing affordability initiative

Wells Fargo has launched a new a $20 million

Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge to

spur efforts to address challenges in construction,

nancing and support services for low- and moderate-

income families, the elderly and the homeless. The

company will partner with Enterprise Community

Partners on the initiative, which aims to identify,

accelerate and scale promising ideas, models and

approaches to solving housing affordability issues;

provide peer-to-peer learning and networking op-

portunities; and disseminate ideas and models that

engage a wider audience of stakeholders in the search

for housing affordability innovations. Grantees will be

selected through a competitive request-for-proposals

process, which will be announced this fall. Following

the RFP process, Wells Fargo and ECP will host a

pitch competition event to select six winners to receive

funding for their proposals. The challenge is part of

Wells Fargo’s new $1 billion commitment to housing

affordability in the United States. ■

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