MK Yinon Magal (Bayit Yehudi) has proposed legislation in the Knesset that will tax Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) who receive significant funding from foreign governments.
The proposed law will tax any NGO receiving more than $50,000 from a foreign government, at the rate of 37% on those funds.
Those NGOs will also be restricted in the amount of cooperation they can receive from official government bodies and the IDF, and will be designated as a “foreign NGO”.
In addition, the NGO will be required to place notification on all their official documents that they are supported by foreign governments.
Regarding foreign government funding funneled through another NGO, the 2011 foreign funding transparency law explicitly covers all money that originates with governments.
Bayit Yehudi head called this a “response to the UN report.”
The latest UN “Schabes Report” against Israel received information from Israeli NGOs who receive millions of shekels from foreign governments in Europe, and advance the interests of those foreign governments.
The proposed law will not stop the NGOs from continuing their work, but it will make clear that they providing services for foreign government who ere using local Israelis to promote the agendas of the foreign governments.
The United States has a similar law called the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The U.S. law requires those working directly or indirectly for a foreign government or foreign organization publicly disclose that information, as well as disclosing all their activities and finances.