New, Improved IRS Data Available on OpenSecrets.org by Robert Maguire.
From the post:
Among the more than 160,000 comments the IRS received recently on its proposed rule dealing with candidate-related political activity by 501(c)(4) organizations, the Center for Responsive Politics was the only organization to point to deficiencies in a critical data set the IRS makes available to the public.
This month, the IRS released the newest version of that data, known as 990 extracts, which have been improved considerably. Now, the data is searchable and browseable on OpenSecrets.org.
“Abysmal” IRS data
Back in February, CRP had some tough words for the IRS concerning the information. In the closing pages of our comment on the agency’s proposed guidelines for candidate-related political activity, we wrote that “the data the IRS provides to the public — and the manner in which it provides it — is abysmal.”
While I am glad to see better access to 501(c) 990 data, in a very real sense, this isn’t “IRS data” is it?
This is data that the government collected under penalty of law from tax entities in the United States.
Granting it was sent in “voluntarily” but there is a lot of data that entities and individuals send to local, state and federal government “voluntarily.” Not all of it is data that most of us would want handed out because other people are curious.
As I said, I like better access to 990 data but we need to distinguish between:
- Government sharing data it collected from citizens or other entities, and
- Government sharing data about government meetings, discussions, contacts with citizens/contractors, policy making, processes and the like.
If I’m not seriously mistaken, most of the open data from government involves a great deal of #1 and very little of #2.
Is that your impression as well?
One quick example. The United States Congress, with some reluctance, seems poised on delivery of near real-time information on legislative proposals before Congress. Which is a good thing.
But there has been no discussion of tracking the final editing of bills to trace the insertion or deletion of language by who and with whose agreement? Which is a bad thing.
It makes no difference how public the process is up to final edits, if the final version is voted upon before changes can be found and charged to those responsible.