Karl Rove has gone on the offensive about his GPS Crossroads tax-exempt non-profit (or 501 (c)(4) ) claiming that they're being unfairly targeted by the IRS when the NAACP and other non-profits get to keep their tax exempt status despite doing business like Rove's GPS Crossroads. 

Rove wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal accusing Assistant Senate Majority Leader, Dick Durbin, of unfairly asking the IRS to look into GPS Crossroads in 2010 for political gains

But Rove forgets to mention how dissimilar GPS Crossroads is in comparison to other 501 (c)(4) groups like the NAACP or Priorities USA, to name two largely liberal non-profits Rove said should also be targeted by IRS inquiries.

The Daily Beast points out as much mentioning both the size of money being raised by GPS Crossroads and their relatively tiny staff. 

First, it's important to note nonprofits are exempt because section 501 (c) of the Internal Revenue Code says that 28 different types of nonprofits are exempt from paying federal income taxes. 

Here is what the 501(c) (4) form states: "(i) It is not organized or operated for profit; and (ii) It is operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare."

Many non-profits are offered this tax-exempt protection as a way of allowing them to help the general welfare of American citizens: whether it's civic leagues, or corporations designed specifically for this, rather ambiguous "general welfare."

The biggest differences between even the most ardently political 501(c)(4) on both the right and left is the millions of dollars GPS Crossroads spends on political ads, consultants et al. 

Even far-right groups like the NRA, which actually accepts money from GPS Crossroads, and Focus on the Family Action, have large staffs that control their funds, but according to the Daily Beast, GPS Crossroads only has 8 full-time staff members and no volunteers.

Robert Maguire did some digging and "In both the 2010 and 2012, Crossroads GPS alone spent more than all liberal dark-money groups combined, according to FEC reports."

Rove's arguing about a nonprofit that spends more than all liberal nonprofit (dark, meaning they did not have to report who their donors were) 501 (c)(4) entities COMBINED.

That's not all, the small staff even makes it an outlier among other like-minded 501 (c)(4) groups with a conservative slant, like the the NRA, and Americans for Tax Reform, which accepted money from dark companies like GPS Crossroads and Center to Protect Patient Rights, which itself has 58 staff members, a few volunteers and clear-thought for liberal thinkers, misguided-social welfare agenda. 

The GPS Crossroads gets conservative Republicans elected to the legislature. That's ALL it does, and it's not clear if that's a social welfare or not since they're not promoting a single issue component aside from victory. 

Maguire sums it up nicely in his concluding paragraph: 

"No matter the questions about their political activities, when you look at the League of Conservation Voters or the National Rifle Association, you don't have to dig much to find valid social welfare activities. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the content of those activities is another matter entirely."