WHEREAS, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech and association, and forcing charities to annually register with the state and pay a fee before speaking is a prior restraint on speech; 

WHEREAS, state charitable annual reporting forms are duplicative of information already provided by private sector charity watchdog organizations, imposing unnecessary burdens on charities serving the public and wasting state taxpayer funds;  

WHEREAS, the total cost of annual registration renewals in states with such registration laws may cost charities $1 billion or more annually in registration renewal fees, attorney fees to file renewal forms, and internal staff time to prepare the registration forms, and such funds would be better spent serving charitable purposes; 

WHEREAS, key financial reporting by charities appears on IRS Form 990, which is readily publicly available online, including on the IRS website and as a downloadable file for all charities; 

WHEREAS, streamlining regulation allows state resources to be more effectively targeted toward investigating and prosecuting fraudulent use of charitable funds; and 

WHEREAS, Arizona and Utah recently repealed their charitable registration laws for most charitable fundraising and ten other states have no or very limited registration requirements; 

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that this body supports legislation that repeals charitable annual registration requirements because the publicly available federal IRS Form 990 provides potential supporters with relevant information on financial management and transparency; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this body supports coupling regulatory streamlining with stronger, targeted enforcement against fraudulent use of charitable funds to protect the public.