Audit political think tanks for undisclosed foreign funding

Policy in this country is often written with help from think tanks. Their reports are cited in committee, their staff testify, their alumni fill agencies. Who pays them is a fair public question, and right now it does not have to be answered. Universities report foreign gifts under the Higher Education Act. Think tanks have no equivalent requirement. A tax-exempt organization lists its large donors on Schedule B of its annual return, and those names are redacted from the copy the public is allowed to inspect. So disclosure is voluntary. About 40 percent of think tanks disclose no donors at all. Among the ones that do, the top 75 foreign-policy institutions reported more than $25 million from foreign governments in 2024. That is a floor, not a total: it counts only those that chose to say. H.R. 3966 addresses part of this. It would require tax-exempt organizations to report contributions over $10,000 from foreign governments and foreign political parties on their annual return. Introduced June 2025, it has sat in the Ways and Means Committee without a vote since. I am asking for two things. First, move H.R. 3966, or a bill like it, out of committee to a vote. Second, do not pass it without verification. As written it has no audit, no penalty, and no way to check a filing. A disclosure rule that nothing verifies is a self-report, and the organizations most likely to have something to report have the strongest reason not to file it. Add periodic audit of foreign-source funding by an independent body, on a published schedule, with the completeness rate published too. One constraint matters as much as the rule. The audit must key on money and direction: who paid, how much, what was asked for. Never on what an organization argues or which party its conclusions favor. An audit power aimed at conclusions is a censorship tool, and it will be pointed at whoever is out of office next. Aimed at the books, it is ordinary accounting, and cheap next to what unexamined foreign money buys. Full provision text and costs: rules-not-rulers.org