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GGD-96-29R 1 (1995-10-10)

handle is hein.gao/gaobackzq0001 and id is 1 raw text is: GAO United States General Accounting Office Washington, D.C. 20548 General Government Division B-270104 October 10, 1995 The Honorable Ernest Istook House of Representatives Dear Mr. Istook: At your request we have reviewed the methodology that Dr. William Duncan has used to prepare his analysis entitled, Non-Profit Lobbying Statistics. We have previously testified on issues associated with lobbying by tax-exempt organizations before the Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs, House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight.' In his analysis, Dr. Duncan attempts to quantify the lobbying expenditures made by 501(c)(3) organizations that received government grants in tax year 1992. While we cannot vouch for the statistics he presents, our assessment is that his approach should produce reasonably accurate results if the methodology he described to us was applied to the data he identified. We have not assessed the relevance of Dr. Duncan's analysis to any pending legislation, nor have we taken a position on any proposal related to lobbying by tax exempt organizations. Dr. Duncan gave us a detailed oral explanation of his methodology, walked us through the general layout of his database, and described the content and source of his raw data. Independent Sector, a major coalition of national charities, had provided him with a publicly available database from IRS.2 Given the short timeframe for our review, we did not independently verify that the raw data used were identical to those in the original IRS files. The version of Dr. Duncan's analysis we reviewed is enclosed. 'TAX-EXEMPT ORGANIZATIONS: Additional Information on Activities and IRS Oversight. GAO/T-GGD-95-198, June 29, 1995. 2Dr. Duncan told us that this database was IRS, Statistics of Income Division's (SOL) sample of 501(c)(3) organizations for tax year 1992. It should be noted that while SOI samples are considered reasonably reliable, they are estimates and subject to sampling error. ( q S GAO/GGD-96-29R, Tax Exempt

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