Name: Live Webinar: Washington D.C. Update Legislative Considerations Affecting the Philanthropic Community
Uploaded: 2025-03-25T18:16:10.116Z
Duration: 1 h 40 s
Description: Live Webinar: Washington D.C. Update Legislative Considerations Affecting the Philanthropic Community

Transcript for "Live Webinar: Washington D.C. Update Legislative Considerations Affecting the Philanthropic Community": Good afternoon, and welcome to our live webinar, Washington DC on up update on legislative considerations affecting the philanthropic community, hosted by PKF O'Connor Davies. Before we get started, I'd like to go over a few housekeeping items so you know how to participate in today's call. We're pleased to offer live closed captioning throughout the webinar. To access the captions, please use the StreamText link located in the chat section of your attendee panel. You'll have the opportunity to submit text questions to today's presenters by clicking on the q and a tab on the right hand panel. You may send in your questions at any time during the webcast. We have a lot of material to cover, and if time permits, we will make an effort to respond. If we cannot get to your questions, a response will be sent post event. This webinar is offering one CPE credit in accounting governmental. To receive credit, you must respond to three polling questions, which will appear in the polls tab on the right hand panel. Each time a poll is live, a small red dot will briefly appear next to the tab. And we'll be giving periodic announcements when the poll questions is ready for your answering. CVE certificates will be issued within eight to ten days via email. A copy of the PowerPoint slides and a recording of today's webinar will be made available to you via email within four business days. As we near the end of the webinar, we do have a very short survey which will be prompted, and your response is greatly appreciated. At this time, I would like to introduce Anand Samara, partner with our private foundation practice at PKF O'Connor Davies. Anand? Thank you, Arlene. Good afternoon, everyone. We wanna thank you all for joining us today for our discussion, or I should say an update, on legislative considerations affecting private foundations and the philanthropic community as a whole. We work with over 600 private foundations and 4,000 public charities here at PCCF for Con and Davies. And, you know, the past few months, I don't think a day goes by where we're negative phone call or an email from whether it's a client or non client on we'll just try to understand the, current landscape and how to navigate the current landscape. And more importantly, you know, what's happening in DC? How does that affect my foundations or my organization? So these are very important topics, for the philanthropic community. And, again, we wanna thank you for joining us. We are super excited to get started. We have close to 600 private foundations and not and philanthropic organizations registered for today's event. I will keep my introductions as brief as possible. I do wanna allow more time for our, speaker. As, Harleen mentioned, we do have a lot to cover today. So with that said, brief introduction. My name is Anant Samara. For those of you who may not know me. I'm a partner with the private foundation practice here at PKF for Con and Davies. With me today is my cohost and fellow partner in the practice, Scott Brown. Scott will field, questions, towards the end of the webinar. We do plan to have about ten to fifteen minutes available towards the end for q and a. And, of course, more important than Scott and I is today's featured speaker, Sarah Bormar. Sarah is a principal with Integer LLC, down in DC. Many of you may know or recognize Sarah. Sarah was one of our speakers back in December for our seventeenth annual private foundation, symposium. She did an amazing job, and, we're fortunate enough to have her back, for today's event. We've partnered with Sarah and her firm, many, for many occasions over the years, for really for updates on what's going on in DC. Generally, it's when there's an election year, but, obviously, for this time around, it just really gives an update of what's going on with the, in DC. With that said, I'll let you know turn over to Sarah, but I do wanna remind everyone, that for those who are looking for CPE to make sure you answer those poll questions. Okay? With that said, I'll now turn over to Sarah. Thank you, Anand. And, yes, for any attendees who were, at that event in December, doesn't it feel like a couple years ago at this point? I I think it does. But, really excited to be with you all today. Good afternoon to those of you, closer to the East side of the country. Good morning to some of you. I want to start by just giving you a bit of an overview of what I plan to cover today to give us a bit of a roadmap. First, we will start with what I'm calling the first quarter frenzy of this new administration. What has happened in the last nine weeks and what we can expect in the next, next few and going forward into the rest of the year. Then we'll talk about tax reform, which is the top priority in DC this year. If you did hear me speak back at the December event, I talked a lot about it then, and there's even more to talk about and more to still come, over the rest of this year on that topic and how those negotiations play out. And then finally, I am going to give an update on the regulatory horizon and this administration's approach to regulation, and and what we can be looking out for going forward this year and into the remainder of the, the administration. So without further ado, let's get into it. Like I said, it it does feel like it's been a bit since, since the December, and we we really measure new administrations in the number of days. And, the first one hundred is the most common, and you may think that it's been a couple hundred at this point as we all certainly do do see, having to field what Anan referred to as just a lot of developments. But, but this is really a time for a new administration, especially to deliver on their campaign promises in some way. And you may recall hearing a lot, a lot of, commitments and promises made last year to get things done in the first one hundred days. They're always pretty aspirational, but, but there are long to do lists, and we'll go over a little bit of what we've seen so far and what is still being attempted in the next couple weeks. We're a little over a month away from the end of the first one hundred days. And there, what has been done is a long list that really the top of it is the executive actions, executive orders, and memos that have been issued by the new administration that really, re really puts markers in the sand of where they're trying to go with certain issues and how far they're willing to push the envelope with their own administrative authority, and where they and the reactions to which they will learn, where they need some more congressional authority. Another to do on that first one hundred days list is confirming political positions. And talk I'll talk a little bit about what different positions, will are have been confirmed and have yet to be confirmed that will be influential in the tax policy conversation, which is largely where we see, we see policy impacting philanthropy. The, funding the government was also on that list. That is the the one thing on here that we can put a check mark next to because they did successfully fund the government about a week and a half ago. And then addressing our nation's credit card bill will be coming up soon. And so there are some political politics or political dynamics at play, with addressing the debt limit that we can get into. Let's start with where the headlines have been on the executive actions. Some of the major actions that are getting attention in the nonprofit sector are related to DEI programs and federal grant making. On DEI, there were a couple orders that, that had that caused concern, one of which would unwind DEI programs that are in government. And that falls a little bit more squarely within the authority of, of the administration than the, the the second order, which deals with DEI practices at private organizations, including foundations. And it's important here because this order directs different agencies to choose organizations to investigate, for what they refer to as illegal DEI practices. And, and this one has the most direct potential direct effect on private foundations because they do explicitly note in the order that, private foundations of 500,000,000 or with endowments of 500,000,000 or above, are would be subject to a potential investigation here. This order has seen a couple different, different rulings in the courts over the last two months. Originally, the these both of these DEI, related orders were paused on constitutional grounds. But most recently, a federal appellate court actually lifted the injunction that had created that pause on the DEI orders, finding that they likely are constitutional because of some of the technicalities of the wording. And that has enabled the administration to move forward, with implementing the order. It's still not clear how it will be implemented and, in what, to what extent at each agency. There are, of course, different resources available to different agencies. There are different interest areas of the types of private organizations, institutions, and companies that they may choose to investigate. So how the, how the administration will determine those organizations remains to be seen. But we will still see more action on this order in a future ruling, on that that broader challenge to its constitutionality. But for now, the administration is permitted to move forward. So, so we're we haven't heard of any, initial actions taken, that, organizations have reported, but, but we may start to see those in the coming months as agencies decide which organizations they're going to investigate. Another big headline grabber in the executive action space is the government grants pause, which has caused many nonprofits uncertainty. And I'm sure many folks on this webinar have heard from grantee organizations who rely in large part or even in small part on grants from the federal government, to do their work. And and what's what's happened here is this initial pause was put into place, and then it was very quickly, very quickly, paused. The pause was paused, and the government was ordered to continue fulfilling their grant programs, especially those that had already, been committed. But the the application of that has not been consistent among agencies. So we're still hearing from nonprofit organizations that even though the pause was unpaused, they're still not receiving the grants that they are applying for or had already been, accepted to to receive. And this is something that's, again, another challenge that's going to continue to play out in probably a lot lot of courts, on whether the, administration can withhold the funding that has been not only has already been committed to certain organizations, but has been directed by congress to be used on certain programs. So so again, waiting for more legal determinations in that sense, but this is likely something that won't impact private foundations directly, but more so, more so your grantees and will likely lead to grantee organizations turning to private philanthropy, whether it's private foundations or other sources for, for some holdover grants while they navigate this complicated process with the federal government. I am going to also just pause as speaker to do my due diligence and let you all know that there is a polling question that's live right now, that you can go into the poll tab to, to answer. Moving on. Another lesser known action that has been, has been a directive to agencies to evaluate federal financial assistance that they're providing and, a very long list of, what the administration deemed as financial assistance programs was put out. And on there is the, is the charitable, deduction exemption, for both donations and, organizations themselves. And the reason I raise this is because billing, exemption of organizations, and the deductibility it gives to charity as federal financial assistance, can subject them to more administrative scrutiny, because they, in some folks' views, they could be viewed as, optional programs like we're seeing with some of the grant programs that the administration has paused or rolled back. And so as different agencies analyze their list of federal financial assistance programs, what we're really watching is whether any any proposals come out to limit the federal financial assistance being provided in the form of deductions and exemptions, for the nonprofit sector. We haven't heard any details on, again, on which programs they're really going through. It's fine with a fine tooth comb. But, but as that comes out, that will be something important to watch and, evaluate for potential impacts on philanthropic resources. And then there's tariffs. And, and it really it's the the impact that we're seeing of this this tariff and trade conversation that I think is the most important to keep an eye on from a foundation perspective. There are a couple implications. One, of course, as I think a lot of folks are seeing or will eventually, will eventually see when some of these tariffs go into place are increases in prices. And the reason that's important is because there are a number of, a number of, items and, materials that could be subject to, subject to tariffs that your grantees rely on, which means the dollar just won't go as far, similar to, inflation when our dollar just doesn't go as far. So tariffs are tariffs can have that, that effect on those increased prices on the the sector as well. The second more direct, more direct impact of tariffs is, the the investment performance effect and the the effect it has on the stock market and the uncertainty that it creates for investors, like foundation endowments, like other, philanthropic vehicles that, that invest their assets, and the impact it can have ultimately on the value of those assets should there continue to be ups and downs in the in the stock market, and potential, you know, more permanent downs if a lot of the tariffs remain in place. So, so to the to the extent that this trade near trade war, continues, I think we're gonna continue to see some of that directed and direct impact on the sector and on philanthropic resources, that could certainly affect how far, how far grants can go. So now that I've rained on everybody's parade, I am gonna move on to, to what I mentioned in that outset about the first one hundred days, which is, the the nominations and confirmations that we have seen and will continue to see. So, so what we really look at in the context of foundations and nonprofits when it comes to policy here in DC is who is shaping tax policy. And for many of you know on this call, but, but in general, most, most policy conversations that directly impact the existence of the sector are in the tax space, and and even affect the practices and the taxation of such happens in the tax space. So, so the question is who is going to be at the helm of changing the tax code, especially in this big tax reform year? We already saw the confirmation of treasury secretary Scott Bessent. We're wait awaiting the confirmations, of Ken Keyes and Billy Long, who are also integral in that treasury IRS dynamic, to to tax policy conversations and really directing where the the administration lands on tax policy that could impact philanthropy. As assistant secretary for tax policy, Kim Keys, will be really, important in writing writing of regulations and really serving as a lobbyist for the administration's priorities with Congress as they navigate changes to the tax code. And then there's, there's potential, you know, a commissioner nominee Billy Long, who, if confirmed, would be in charge of enforcement and, enforcing the tax code and, and really carrying out what is written into law and then written into regulation. These, these two are confirmed by the senate finance committee, and, the finance committee has quite a list of confirmations they have to deal with. They also have to consider nominations for, health and human services positions as well as Social Security and other, related tax and, and financial positions. So the you know, we expect these to come up in the next month or two, but the important thing that we are watching is where, if at all, these, these nominees say anything related to foundations, related to endowments, or related to their, their kind of approach to to regulating and enforcing on the nonprofit sector. And then you will also have, the National Economic Council director, Kevin Hassett, and the Council of Economic Advisors chair, Stephen Muren, who will be influencing, influencing the president's tax policy agenda from more advisory positions. And and their, input and take on, on tax policy and specifically those policies that impact philanthropy will, will directly, influence the president's approach to tax policy in our space. So we're keeping an eye on these, and the more that they say about, about the sector, the more we have to to interpret and report and educate on, so that they have, you know, a full picture of the good work that's being done and some of the potential consequences of, overregulation or legislation that negatively impacts philanthropic resources. So that was, you know, a bit more on the process and administrative side. And then there is the legislative changes that have to have had to be made or will have to be addressed roughly in the first one hundred to two hundred days. First of all was government funding. And, and I, you know, I I predicted about three weeks ago when I was presenting to another group that, that they would probably be, you know, passing a government funding bill a couple days before the expiration of, of the current funding which expired on March 14. And, they proved me wrong in a way, that is typical of Washington. They did wait until the fourteenth, pretty close to to the end of the day to extend government funding through the remainder of our fiscal year, so September 30, at current levels. And and that was done on a Republican, a nearly Republican only basis. It was a full, nearly full Republican basis in the house with one Democrat voting for the extension. And then, in the senate there, we they got what we say was jammed by the house because the house passed their bill and then they left town. So any changes that the senate would have made would have forced the house to, to reconvene and vote again. But, but that is done. That is off the to do list, which is one less thing that the administration and congress has to worry about on their very long, very long to do list. Next is also addressing the debt limit. Like I said, this is kind of the the country's credit card bill, credit limit, if you will. How much debt we can take on before, before defaulting. And, and the way that it works, and many of you have probably seen over the years, is that, we either have a dollar limit in place or we totally just take away the debt ceiling for a set amount of time and say, for this amount of time, it does not, it doesn't matter how much debt we take on, but after x date, we revert back to our current ceiling. And that is what happened at the end of last year. The suspension of the debt ceiling expired and we went back to having a ceiling in place, and the Treasury has now been engaging in extraordinary measures to ensure that we do not default on our obligations. And that can last until about the summer or early fall. We're hearing more indications that it will last until early fall likely because of some of the the funding changes that are happening happening within the administration. But that is a must do item for the economic health of our country. So that's certainly going to be debated over the next several months. It may find its way into a tax bill, or it could ride on its own with, with bipartisan support. That remains to be seen, and that will likely be dependent on how far Republicans can get in their tax bill negotiations among themselves and whether they're going to have to lean on Democrats to address the debt limit in the meantime while they wait, wait to come to a final agreement on their tax legislation this year. I will also pause again to let folks know that the polling question is in the polls tab and is available for you to fill out over the next minute or so. Then finally on the to do list is, is delivering on the president's and members of congress's campaign promises. And there are kind of two buckets here. The the promises that were made on immigration and energy and defense, and then the tax reform economic bucket. And, you know, we, we kind of rely on the, the old adage, it's the economy stupid here in DC. Right? Folks are folks vote, based on how they feel about the economy and who they feel comfortable making economic decisions. And because of that, we typically see pretty, pretty heavy campaign platforms, with with tax policy promises and changes. And that was there's no exception made this past year, especially with what, what is gearing up to be a really important expiration and renewal in the tax space. The question here for this to do list is whether those two sub bullets, immigration energy and defense and taxes, are done together or separately. The reason being there may not be enough support among all Republicans to do any of them separately, and so they're likely all going to ride together in one large package, that will will address, all of the the campaign, promises and issues that were raised back in the summer and early fall last year. Which then brings us to the tax piece of this. Right? Because that is the biggest that will have the biggest impact on, on philanthropy and on private foundations. And, I wanna get a little bit of background on why we are so heavily talking about tax reform, why you heard about it from me, in December, why you're hearing about it again and will continue to hear about it. And that's because in 02/2017, the last time there was a Republican trifecta in Washington, the the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed. And they used this tool that they will use again, this year to pass it along party lines and avoid a senate, the the 60 vote threshold in the senate, that would prevent a filibuster. And, and that's and the the reason that they need to avoid that 60 vote threshold is because Republicans currently only hold 53 seats in the senate. And when they use that tool back in, 02/2017, there are a lot of restrictions to that tool. And one of them is that the bill cannot add to the deficit outside of a ten year budget window, which means the everything has to be offset by tax increases or spending cuts outside of that window. And and what that meant was that in order to make major changes to the corporate tax rate, rate, and make them permanent, that Congress had to, had to sacrifice the permanency of the individual rates and actually only put temporary cuts in place. And those temporary provisions are set to expire at the end of twenty twenty five, which kinda sets up this opportunity and this necessity for congress to, to address the tax code again, try to extend a number of those expiring provisions, perhaps add in new, new ideas and new policies like some of those that we saw on the campaign trail, or adjust some policies that may not be working how they were intended from 2017. But, when you do the calculation and, try to figure out how much a just a straight renewal of these expiring policies would be, It looks around 4 to 4 and a half trillion dollars. And, and the the, you know, the joke in DC is a, you know, millionaire millionaire, and then you're up to a trillion at some point, but that is a huge number even in DC budget terms. And that does not include the cost of some of the other provisions that have been proposed, on the campaign trail like, president Trump's proposal to remove taxes on tipped income, remove taxes on overtime income, remove taxes on social security income, that would add to that price tag. And so the the big concern and threat in a sense that this creates is that Congress in its current form with its current membership on the Republican side does not have the blanket support for increasing our deficit and our debt by trillions like, this many trillions more dollars, which means they have to offset that cost in some way to get enough support from, from the budget hawks in the party to pass this bill. And that means both looking at spending cuts, which they certainly are already doing and will continue to do, but then also raising revenue. And that is where I think the big concern for the, for the nonprofit sector and philanthropy comes in because the questions then are what what revenue sources will they tap? Will philanthropy be specifically targeted, or will it be a, you know, an unintended consequence of a will will its assets be unintended, consequences of, of higher level attempts to tax untaxed sectors. One of the questions I have on this screen, an open question, which, I think I've answered for myself is that is anything off the table? And the answer to me right now is it's not. There's, you know, the the sector in general has relied on its, its efficacy, its its impact on constituents, and generally a bit of a white hat, to protect itself, as, you know, the do gooders in, in society. And it, has, for the most part, been, seldom subject to really specific attacks and targets. But that is not the same thing that that's not that's not the same way that members of congress are thinking about the nonprofit sector, this year, and we'll get a little bit more into that. But think the bigger political dynamic here that I do want to highlight is that there are small margins, in the especially in the house. Right now, the Republican majority can afford to lose one or two votes. There have been some, some deaths recently that have changed some of the margins, but they can afford to lose one or two votes right now, and still be able to pass something along party lines. So that is a slimmer majority than they have in the senate where they can lose at least, at least three right now, and that's a really hard majority to operate in and to be productive in. So the, the negotiations within the party are gonna be really key to what success looks like for them. I don't think there's an option to do nothing. It just the the question mark lies within how much can they get done and how much is everyone going to have to give up in order to get to a place where, nearly all of the members of the Republican caucus, in the house will vote for a bill, especially those who care very deeply about, about the budget and the mounting debt and deficits. I will to just lighten the mood for everybody, I should have added a polling question related to this, but this is kind of how we are, how we are viewing, DC in congress right now. It's the all it's mostly the all Republican show, but they are not happy with each other, and they have not, not gotten on the same page. So, so we are, you know, just waiting with our bated breath for them to to for them to figure out what they can agree on, and move forward. And hopefully, it will be, it will be sooner rather than later, so that we can get the rest of our year back and start legislating on other issues. But let's I like I said, I wanna talk a little bit specifically about threats and opportunities for philanthropy in this space. And this slide, may be a little, reminiscent of some things I went over during the December presentation with a couple updates. And I'm gonna start on threats, and then I'll I'll end on more positive opportunities. And, like I said, the the time that hunt for revenue really remains the top threat because it is a, it is a zero sum game in some ways. We don't know what the, what the ultimate pie looks like, But but there is a goal. There's going to be a revenue goal that, that lawmakers have to achieve. And, and where they find their revenue could absolutely find its way into the nonprofit sector and, and specifically philanthropic assets. On top of this is this increased scrutiny that we have seen of tax exempt status and, and to the nonprofit sector writ large over the last few years. The ways and means committee, when Jason Smith took over as chair, really focused its oversight attention on the nonprofit sector. And they started with nonprofit hospitals. They moved on to foreign, foreign influence in nonprofits and election influence of nonprofits. And then they spent a lot of time, a lot of time focusing on, on universities and tax exempt status there and, and tax exempt activities, in the wake of the October seventh attacks and then their, perceived mishandling of, of what then followed on. So, so that scrutiny also has been building, and there continues to be voice frustration among, among staff and members of ways and means, especially, which is the tax writing committee in the house. And then there's scrutiny around whether tax exempt organizations are competing with for profits. And, if they are if they are at an advantage to the for profit sector because of their, tax exempt status and whether that needs to be equalized in some way. So so another, you know, threat and potential avenue to seek revenue in some of those activities that congress could potentially deem as for profit in nature or not within the the spirit of taxes of status that has been granted to organizations. Another polling question is live in the polls tab. So, if you all wanna go in there and answer that poll for your CE credit, please go ahead. And and what may be top of mind for most folks here is the potential threat to endowments via endowment taxes. Now, obviously, private foundations already pay a private foundation net investment income tax. We refer to it in shorthand here as the PFX size tax. And, and that, rate, 1.39, is very closely tied in folks' minds to the, the university tax rate at 1.4, that was levied beginning in the 2017 tax bill. And the the threat here, of course, is not only that, that congress could go beyond universities as they look to dial up that, excise tax rate and dial it up in other places like on private foundations, but also that they could just look at the assets in general that are in private foundations and, and seek ways to either mobilize them quicker through increased payout requirements or more likely increase the taxes on them so they can pull in more revenue, from that. Now I think a little over 1,200,000,000,000.0, that is in private foundation endowments. So, so I will say that this is not something we have heard specifically from tax writers. They definitely want to do. We flag it more as a a caution that if, if there is no one telling the good story of private foundations or explaining why, increasing the excise tax could have, significant consequences for the amount of resources that are able to be granted into communities. What that if if that story is not told and that that perspective is not shared, then there could certainly be some staffers who get an idea to expand the the pool of resources that they want to, apply an excise tax to. And, and then, private foundations could be hit. So, so we're keeping an eye on it, but, we are hopeful that they do stay in that university lane. Couple other just quick threats for the sector in general. There have been proposals to put limitations on donor advised funds and private foundation use of donor advised funds, whether it be through, regulations or through legislation that was proposed in, the hundred and seventeenth congress. And then also just to me, what I view as a threat from a, you know, Washington lobbying perspective is the lack of institutional knowledge that we have. There's been a lot of turnover both in the members in congress, but also more so among their staff. There are a few, I think, you can count on one hand, the amount of key tax staffers that were work that worked on, worked for tax writers during the 2017 bill. And you can also count on one hand the number of tax writers in the house on the Republican side, who were on the ways and means committee in 2017. So, so those, organizations that have been around for other changes to the tax code, the consultants, like our firm and others who have been around really are that have to be the institutional knowledge. And some guests, I'm throwing a thumbs up for myself, have to be that institutional knowledge for, for members of congress and their staff right now. On the opportunity side, there are a couple ways that it actually looks like this year or in the next couple years. There may be, maybe ways to expand the charitable giving pie. And, the first is the nonitemizer charitable deduction, which some of you have likely heard about. And I know that it's not direct it doesn't directly impact private foundations, in in terms of deductibility of gifts into your private foundations or your work, but it certainly impacts your grantees. So I think it's important to note that, the nonitemizer deduction that was in place in 2021, 2020 and 2021 will likely, be included in some form in this next tax bill, really as a way to indicate that everyone's charitable giving is important, not just the top 10 percent of taxpayers who itemize their taxes, but that everyone should have that incentive to give. Some other, some other proposals out there that we've seen that could have legs either this year going forward are around expanding the, IRA QCD, whether it's the, the current limitations on, on QCDs into, annuities or on, the types of organizations that folks can can make a QCD two, to include donor advised funds. So we could see some expansions there. Really just looking to expand that that philanthropic pie. And then we may see some legislation around donor privacy or donor intent, really looking to, looking to reinforce the need to protect donors from, from potential threats, whether it be physical threats or intimidation, for their giving choices, as well as ensuring that what where donors intend to give and want to give, is fulfilled. And then finally, the huge opportunity that I always, always underscore is that educating, and sharing your impact as an organization, as a grant maker is always an opportunity, but especially as members of Congress are writing are in real time writing tax law that could impact your work. They need to know what your work is. So on that note, I'm gonna do a quick regulatory overview because I do wanna leave, as much time as possible for questions. The the highlight the good news is that the, the Trump administration historically in his first term and now going into this term as well, While they have been very happy on the executive actions, they are loathed to, to regulate. And there's currently a a regulatory freeze that's being it's kind of in the process of being lifted, since we are nearing the, the end of the first quarter. But, but there is a lot of there are are a few new, kind of guardrails put into place to, steer the regulatory process along so that it doesn't get too big and they don't pass and advance too many regulations and over regulate certain sectors, which is good news because that means that, they're not trying to do too much too much regulating. We were noticed in 02/2017 that there could be, regulations forthcoming on how private foundations use donor advised funds along with how donor advised funds are used by nonprofits and donors. But, but we don't expect those really anytime soon. You know, those could I could be eating my words a week from now if they get a wild hair over at treasury. But for now, that's pretty low on the priority list, and it will go much lower once there is a new tax bill passed. So, again, we are keeping our eye on the regulatory radar right now, but from the perspective of, of organizations within the sector, there is not, not as much for you to have to react to right now, and we'll continue to update, update you all through these types of events as we participate in them for when you may need to do, a little bit more or provide more input to, to the to the regulators. With that said, as those future regulations do come from that tax legislation, any of those earlier threats we talked about are, are contemplated or are included in a tax bill, then, then there will be the opportunity to engage with regulators to make sure they're interpreted correctly and how they will be how they will, will or won't impact the sector negatively, will be will be taken into account as they as they write new tax regulations. I went through a lot, and I'm going to look, look to Scott right now to now help me with questions, fielding those. And I hope we have time for everybody, but, if we don't, I'm also happy to happy to be a resource. Sarah, looking looking to me for for help with that could be a dangerous proposition, so just be careful. But excellent job. Thank you for taking through, taking us through all that information. We did have some questions coming in, that we did hold until the end here to give you some, the ability to go through that information and allow for some thought to be, discussed at the end here. The first question that did come up was a little bit early on in your presentation, and it was asked about what specifically or is there a specific executive order that applies to the private foundations? And if so, do you have that name? Yes. I will work on pulling that name, and I will, I I wanna make sure that I get you guys the, the exact right number of the executive order as well. Sure. And and I think, if I'm, also to to our end to that question, I I believe earlier this month, we did release a bulletin that can be found on our website under our insights that speaks to this executive order. It does mention private foundations within it. Anand is actually one of the co authors of that, and he just provided me, Sarah, the executive order. It's actually EO 14173. So we did put out a bulletin that has some information about what this executive order means for private foundations. So if you do need that or if you have not received that, you can find that on our on our website and under our insights. Thank you for making my job easier and not happy to find it. My pleasure. The next question kind of relates to, the, endowment tax, or the federal excise tax. And I think you kind of alluded to that as as a potential threat. But is there any chatter about, you know, weaponizing this against foundations that the administration may feel as antagonistic or that are going against, what this administration, feels is the proper sort of, let's say, operations? You know, I think chatter would probably be the best word to, word to use is that Mhmm. There have been, there have been ideas and, you know, early discussions and, kind of scenario planning in the event that that does happen among advocates. We haven't heard specifically that the endowment tax is what would be used, but it's not a far cry from the endowment tax that's currently being used against universities. And it's not, you know, I mean, it's being used against large, mostly liberal institutions or perceived liberal institutions. And so, the current, you know, framework of the private foundation endowment tax is a little bit different than that, and it's a little bit harder to adjust. But that, you know, that doesn't preclude them from writing in a new provision that you you turn up the dial for a certain type of organization. I I actually think that the, the exempt status in general of a group is gonna be more put into question when it comes to the sixth, side of things. It would be the the, the the tax, I think, that would be more from the revenue perspective. Totally. So so in saying that, we also and I think Chatter is kind of the, I guess, the word of the day because we do have another question about that. Recently, there was some, chatter by, former vice president Pence years ago about increasing the minimum distribution of private foundations from about, from 5% to about 10%, so almost doubling that. Has there been any updates on this? So the the good news is we haven't heard anything from, from the vice president after he did he has he's made a number of those suggestions since he started running for office. Not for the vice presidency, but when he was running for the Senate. We haven't heard anything coming out of the White House on that. One one caveat I will give though is that one of the president's key advisors, legislative liaisons essentially between the White House and Congress on tax, is a former advisor to the vice president in his, in his Senate law. So, so, you know, the proposal is out there. I think that over time, private foundations have done a pretty good job of, of educating around why the current, payout requirements is the right number. If anything, like, what I you know, the highest end they could go. But in the context of the the funding cuts we're seeing, the critiques of, of just general, you know, nonprofits and NGOs that are coming out of the administration and the Doge effort, there may be calls for private funders to increase their, their payouts, even if they're not from a legislative perspective, we may start to hear it, from the province. Great. And and I think I made a mistake there saying vice president Pence. I meant I meant, current Vice President Pence. And and kind of in line with that as well, I know there's been, some individuals, some activists such as, Ray Madoff and and John Arnold that have targeted private foundations in the past. Has there been any, chatter, from them or anything along those lines that you've been hearing? Nothing, nothing that has risen to the top. Right? We we know that there's still a priority over at Arnold Ventures to do something, on on philanthropy, and some reforms as reform they called reforms to, to charitable giving, both through private foundations and donor advised funds. We haven't gotten any indications, like, from an in an acute nature that they're going to reintroduce a version of the bill that they did introduce to, to impact private foundations and to provide funds a few years ago. What I will say though is they did just, hire a new, advisor to Arnold Ventures who has a history of calling for kind of blanket increased taxation on nonprofits. So they're, you know, they're investing in that that line of thinking. But for now, it doesn't seem like there are many members who are interested in introducing any standalone bills like we saw a couple years. Sure. Is there anything that that you could foresee that could affect private foundations from engaging in in international grant making? Yeah. I think the the question is what that would look like, but part of that scrutiny that I referred to a little bit earlier in that threats column, that we did see out of the, out of the ways and means committee with not just the scrutiny of foreign funding coming into, The United States, but US dollars leaving The United States, into foreign government. And, and that, you know, I think that there will be more scrutiny of international grant making. But what I'm I I think in the the scheme of things, it's not necessarily going to be targeting the foundations that are doing it, but more so, targeting the practice of international maybe trying to rein it in a little bit. Right. The, the timing for the tax bill to start taking shape, is there any idea of of that sort of timing? If anybody on the call knows, feel free to put it in the q and a. So, you know, we hear different things every week. Congress just returned from a recess week last week, so they have to get back into the swing of things this week. And then they can really do business next week and the following before they depart again for another recess. When it comes to what I'm hearing is the, you know, the hopeful timeline is finishing a bill by the July. The the intent to start the the wheels turning over the next few weeks on the process and the the vehicle they'll use, and then iron out their negotiations after Easter. Do a lot of the, a lot of the technical changes that have to be made to stay, you know, within Germany rules, in the early summer and then get something on the president's desk by July. I still think it's gonna take until the fourth quarter. Great. Thank you. And I think we have time for one more question. So, you know, we we've covered a lot here. We've talked about a lot. Sarah, in your opinion, are there specific actions or not your opinion, but maybe are there specific actions that you see private foundations taking to be proactive in this current environment? Yeah. Thank you for that great last question. You know, what what I think is most effective is just telling your story. Talking about the impact that your grants have and connecting the dots between your grant making and the people on the ground that are benefiting from it, especially domestically. And the the reason that that matters is because your constituents, your beneficiaries through your grants are voters. And those are also the folks that members of Congress have. So making sure that those dots are constantly connected for members of Congress to say, oh, yeah, I know that FoundationX funds this program. And this is really important to my constituents, puts them in a better position to have the least consult you when there may be changes on the horizon that could impact your work, but, hopefully also make their decisions based on what would be best. So engaging with those members, you know, sharing your impact, sharing your annual reports with members of Congress, going on to their website, figuring out, who the best person to share something with is through their contact form, is probably the the most effective thing everybody on this call could do. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you for that. And and, you know, Sarah, just thank you so much for taking the time today out of, I'm sure a hectic crazy schedule for you, with with everything that's going on. It's always a pleasure to have you come talk to, our foundation and philanthropic community. We greatly appreciate all the insight that you bring, continuously when when you come and and present for us. So just thank you again, for for today. Thank you for having me. Thanks everybody for taking the time to join, and I look forward to being back. Great. We look forward to having you back. So just before I hand this off to Arlene, I just wanted to let everybody know that, as Arlene mentioned, the replay of this webinar is on our website. You can find this under the insights, as well as other bulletins and information that us as the private foundation practice put out monthly, and, try to continuously educate everybody on this, and and we'll keep our finger on the pulse of this situation. In saying that, thank you everybody for attending. I'll pass this to Harleen to take us through a few housekeeping items, and thank you to the marketing team for helping us pull this together. Thank you so much, Scott, and thank you once again to Sarah for a great presentation, and thank you to all our attendees for joining us today. If you have not completed it already, we have launched our survey. Located in the survey tab of your panel, we greatly appreciate your feedback. Once again, as Scott mentioned, a copy of the PowerPoint slides and a recording of today's webinar will be made available to attendees via email within four business days. For those interested in CP certificates, if you've answered three of the polling questions, those certificates will be issued within eight to ten days via email. Thank you everyone. Once again, have a great rest of your day.