The IRS made a proposal to have Christian non-profits take down the Social Security numbers of donors who give $250 or more in one year, which will put thousands of philanthropists at risk of identity theft and associated complications, experts say.
Cleta Mitchell, lawyer and member of American Bar Association, said a major challenge faced by the churches, if this proposal goes through, is that their donors will be vulnerable to misuse of their personal information.
"I think about every little church, every charity that anybody gives money to," Mitchell told Newsmax in an interview. "How does any donor know whether a charity is going to be able to protect that information?"
A similar regulation was proposed in 2009, but was dismissed after Government of Accountability Office expressed concern that the donations to charity might decline as a result of the rule.
"It would have a dramatic effect on donors' decisions on whether or not to contribute. You'd see a lot of $249.99 contributions to every charitable organization in America," Mitchell said.
Peter Roskam (Rep. - IL) said that even the for-profit organizations have moved from asking for customers' full SSN to only last-four digits to protect their identity.
"When the whole rest of the world from a technological view is moving away from using Social Security numbers, the IRS is moving toward them," he told Fox News. "I think we ought not go that route right now."
"Charities are not well equipped to deal with this," he continued. "We've had for-profit companies -- some of the biggest companies in the world -- that have spent millions and millions and millions of dollars trying to protect their confidential data. And it's been hacked and it's been breached."
The IRS released a statement to counter the allegations over the scope of the proposal. They said that the amendments were brought to the table in September as some companies being audited lost their records of donations to non-profits, and asked the IRS to ask the charities to supply the information to them to assist in the audit.
"This project was prompted because some ... organizations and donors were interested in using this option. This proposal would impose no mandatory changes to existing rules," IRS said.
The agency has maintained that the requirement is optional, to be exercised at the discretion of the non-profit and the donors. But critics of the proposed rule say there is a possibility that the regulation may become mandatory in future, and that it will negatively affect donations to charities.
