Al Sharpton Has Novel Way to Economize on Expenses and Taxes: He Just Doesn't Pay Them

HE JUST DOESN'T PAY THEM?!!

No seriously. He doesn't pay taxes or bills or rent or anything.

Mr. Sharpton has regularly sidestepped the sorts of obligations most people see as inevitable, like taxes, rent and other bills. Records reviewed by The New York Times show more than $4.5 million in current state and federal tax liens against him and his for-profit businesses. And though he said in recent interviews that he was paying both down, his balance with the state, at least, has actually grown in recent years. His National Action Network appears to have been sustained for years by not paying federal payroll taxes on its employees.

With the tax liability outstanding, Mr. Sharpton traveled first class and collected a sizable salary, the kind of practice by nonprofit groups that the United States Treasury's inspector general for tax administration recently characterized as "abusive," or "potentially criminal" if the failure to turn over or collect taxes is willful.

Mr. Sharpton and the National Action Network have repeatedly failed to pay travel agencies, hotels and landlords. He has leaned on the generosity of friends and sometimes even the organization, intermingling its finances with his own to cover his daughters' private school tuition.

...

With Mr. Sharpton focused on the 2004 presidential race, National Action Network's finances were reaching crisis levels, tax documents and other public records show. The group's revenues totaled just over $1 million in 2004, about half of what they had been two years earlier. Nevertheless, it picked up expenses from Mr. Sharpton's presidential bid: $181,115 in consulting and other costs that should have been charged to his campaign, the Federal Election Commission later found. The group also faced court judgments for several hundred thousand dollars in unpaid office rent and hotel bills.

To stay afloat, the nonprofit became reliant on money that was supposed to go to payroll taxes, according to its financial statements. The amount National Action Network underpaid the federal government in taxes went from about $900,000 in 2003 to almost $1.9 million by 2006, records show....

In 2009, when the group still owed $1.1 million in overdue payroll taxes, Mr. Sharpton began collecting a salary of $250,000 from National Action Network. The recent Treasury report that called that sort of practice abusive also said only 1,200 organizations in the nation owed more than $100,000 in unpaid payroll taxes, which would put Mr. Sharpton’s group among the most delinquent nonprofit organizations in the nation.

posted by Ace at 05:01 PM

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