Chamber of Commerce pushes back on Ways and Means Committee inquiry

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is pushing back on an investigation by the House Ways and Means Committee into donations it received from a left-leaning nonproft and reporting by a right-wing outlet that prompted the inquiry.

The chair of the chief tax-writing committee, Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), sent a letter Monday to Chamber President and CEO Suzanne Clark and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation President Carolyn Cawley requesting information on donations from the Tides Foundation. 

The Tides Foundation has received funding from Open Society Foundations, the nonprofit founded by the billionaire Democratic megadonor George Soros, a frequent target of conspiracy theories and the political right.

Between 2018 and 2022, tax records first reported by the right-wing outlet Breitbart News indicate the Tides Foundation gave more than $12 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation for purposes including “economic development,” “project support” and “equality, human rights and economic empowerment.”

But Eric Eversole, president of the Hiring Our Heroes program at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, said the Breitbart report, which alleged the Chamber was turning to “to Soros-Funded groups and Democrats to keep dwindling operations alive,” was “inaccurate.”

“The Tides Foundation operates a donor advised fund, through which corporations and individuals make charitable donations. The funds received by the Chamber Foundation were charitable contributions from corporations made to the donor advised fund,” Eversole told The Hill.

Donor-advised funds allow an individual or company to give money to the nonprofit then direct those funds as grants to other nonprofits.  Federal disclosure rules make it difficult, if not impossible, to draw a direct line from an individual donor to a grant for a specific organization through a donor-advised fund, especially one as large as the Tides Foundation. The Tides Foundation reported raising $573.7 million and paying out $667 million in grants in 2022, according to its most recent Form 990.

“The issue you raise is exactly which donors funded these operations through the Tides Foundation and for what purpose. That’s a question the House Ways and Means Committee is investigating,” a Breitbart News spokesperson told The Hill when asked for comment on their reporting on the ultimate source of donor-advised funds.

Citing the Breitbart report, Smith said in his Monday letter that the Tides Foundation “partners with and sponsors several anti-business organizations” that appear to conflict with the Chamber’s mission to support small businesses and raised questions about the business lobbying giant’s tax-exempt status.

“These reports are concerning because the Committee is evaluating whether tax-exempt organizations like USCC and USCCF are operating for the exempt purposes that allowed them to obtain tax-exempt status. Additionally, the Committee is concerned about whether donors to, and members of, organizations like yours have sufficient awareness of how their money is being spent,” Smith wrote.

Eversole said the lion’s share of the funding went to the Hiring Our Heroes program, which launched in 2011 to connect the military community with American businesses, as well as “smaller programs focused on workforce development.”

Smith gave the Chamber until May 20 to not only detail how the funds from the Tides Foundation have been used, but why it accepts funds from the Tides Foundation, whether it shares the nonprofit’s vision and what “taxpayers getting in return for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s tax-exempt status.”

Updated at 3:15 p.m. EDT.