Money That May Not Be Given at All

Contribution limits assume the source may give something. A separate body of rule addresses sources that may give nothing. These prohibitions are categorical: no amount is permitted, no designation cures the problem, and no cap is relevant. The recipient's obligation is not to record the receipt correctly but to identify it and return it.

Funds From a Foreign National

A foreign national may not make a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or an expenditure, independent expenditure or disbursement, in connection with a federal, state or local election. The reach across all three levels is unusual; most federal campaign finance provisions stop at federal elections. The definition of foreign national covers foreign governments, foreign political parties, foreign corporations and associations organized under foreign law or with their principal place of business abroad, and individuals who are neither citizens nor lawfully admitted for permanent residence.

The regulation extends the prohibition past the transfer. A foreign national may not direct, dictate, control or participate directly or indirectly in the decision-making process of any person with regard to election-related activities, including decisions about contributions, donations, expenditures and the administration of a political committee. Organizations with foreign ownership or foreign officers therefore separate those individuals from the political activity entirely rather than merely from the payment.

The prohibition binds both sides. No person may solicit, accept or receive a contribution or donation from a foreign national. The receiving standard is knowledge based, and the regulation describes what a recipient must do when facts suggest a source may be a foreign national, including the inquiries that satisfy the duty and the point at which continued acceptance becomes knowing.

Two categories sit close to the line without falling inside it. A lawful permanent resident is not a foreign national for these purposes and may contribute on the same footing as a citizen. A domestic subsidiary of a foreign parent may contribute through a separate segregated fund where the funds are generated domestically and no foreign national participates in the decisions, a condition that is easier to state than to document, which is why written exclusion policies are common in that setting.

Funds of a Federal Contractor

A person who contracts with the United States, or with any department or agency of it, for the rendition of personal services, for furnishing material, supplies or equipment, or for selling land or buildings, may not directly or indirectly make a contribution from the person's own funds. The bar covers contributions to any political party, committee or candidate for federal office, and it also covers contributions to any person for any political purpose or use.

The period runs from the earlier of the commencement of negotiations or the issuance of the request for proposals, and ends at the later of the completion of performance or the termination of negotiations. What is restricted is the contracting entity's own funds. Personal contributions by employees, officers and owners in their individual capacities are unaffected, and a contractor's separate segregated fund financed by voluntary personal contributions is a distinct entity from the contracting party.

Grants, subcontracts and cooperative agreements do not all sit inside the definition, and the analysis turns on the nature of the instrument rather than on the presence of federal money. A subcontractor to a prime contractor is not automatically a contractor with the United States. Because the restriction attaches to a status that can begin with the opening of negotiations, entities that bid regularly track the restriction by opportunity rather than by award.

Treasury Funds of Corporations, Banks and Labor Organizations

National banks and corporations organized by authority of federal law may not make contributions or expenditures in connection with any election. Other corporations and labor organizations may not make contributions or expenditures in connection with federal elections from treasury funds. The provision also bars a committee from knowingly accepting such a contribution, so the duty is again two-sided.

The statute supplies its own principal exception. Establishing, administering and soliciting contributions to a separate segregated fund is not a prohibited contribution or expenditure, and the fund's own contributions come from voluntary personal money rather than from the treasury. The connected organization may pay the fund's administrative and solicitation costs, and those payments are not treated as contributions to candidates.

The boundary between treasury contributions and treasury spending on independent communications has been reshaped by litigation, and the statutory text is narrower in application than it appears on its face. What has not changed is the contribution side: treasury funds may not be given to a federal candidate's committee, and characterizing a payment as something else does not alter that if the payment is a contribution under the tests in the definition of a contribution.

The Recipient's Duty When the Source Is Doubtful

A committee that receives money it cannot verify has a defined procedure rather than a judgment call. It may decline to deposit the receipt, or it may deposit it while retaining sufficient funds to make a refund, and it must complete its inquiry within a stated period. If the receipt cannot be confirmed as lawful within that period, it must be refunded. Depositing a doubtful receipt and spending against it forecloses the clean return the rule contemplates.

Where the money has already been spent, the remedy is disgorgement rather than refund, and the amount is ordinarily paid to the Treasury. The same mechanics apply to receipts that are lawful in source but excessive in amount, though those carry the additional cure options described in the refund and redesignation procedure. Receipts routed through an intermediary to conceal a prohibited source raise the distinct problem addressed in contributions made in another name.

Prohibited-source questions rarely arrive alone. A receipt from an impermissible source is usually also an unreported or misreported item, and both aspects are examined together in the process described in the enforcement sequence. Committees that maintain contemporaneous documentation of source inquiries are in a materially different position from those reconstructing the question afterward.