Nothing But Sheet Metal to See Here... For Now.

You may have been following the FOIA lawsuit by Public.Resource.org, (a Section 501(c)(3) organization headed by Carl Malamud that is dedicated to open government) against the IRS. Public.Resource.org filed a FOIA request for information on the Sheet Metal and Air Conditional National Association (SMACNA) and its affiliated entities (the original complaint is here), but demanded that the IRS turn over the information in electronic format (not paper copy).  The IRS resisted, arguing that it was administratively burdensome and that the paper copies were sufficient.  In January of this year, however, the District Court ordered the IRS to turn over the electronic files of the requested Forms 990 within sixty days.

Sixty days came and went.  Appeals happened.  According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, however, it looks like the IRS apparently finally released the SMACNA documents this week (the documents are here).   Of greater interest (not that sheet metal isn’t interesting, … I guess… ) is the article’s report that the IRS is dropping its appeal.  Given that Malamud wants the IRS to create a fully searchable database of all electronically filed Forms 990, I wonder what comes next?  Will the IRS voluntarily comply with electronic file FOIA requests?  In the process of responding to this law suit, did the IRS set up a procedure that could be replicated easily?  Are they going the full database route – according to the article, it appears that discussions are underway.  In the grand scheme of things, such a database would be very useful, but so would a great number of things administratively at the IRS.   After all, the IRS has so many spare folks sitting around with nothing to do…

As an aside, I wondered why the sheet metal folks drew the ire of Public.Resource.org – the backstory appears to be that Public.Resource.org investigated and sued the SMACNA with regard to the association’s efforts to have its standards incorporated into state and local safety codes.  

EWW