Fox News is reporting that AARP’s tax exemption is being debated in the Capitol after a report titled “Behind the Veil: The AARP America Doesn’t Know,” alleges it violated their tax exempt status by, in effect, selling health insurance policies and by actively lobbying for the massive health care law passed by Congress and signed by President Obama last year.

Both those activities, Republicans say, violate the spirit of 501c4 tax-exempt organizations, which are supposed to “promote the common good and social welfare of a community of people.”

Confronted with the report during an oversight hearing Friday held by the House Ways and Means Committee, senior AARP managers recoiled at its accusations.

“We do not sell insurance,” Barry Rand, chief executive officer of AARP told the committee. He described AARP’s insurance related revenues as “royalties.”

AARP Tax Exemption Report at Center of Contentious Capitol Hill Hearing