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You are here: Home / Economics / Grifters Gonna Grift / Open Thread: 990 Reasons (But A Bigot Ain’t Got One)

Open Thread: 990 Reasons (But A Bigot Ain’t Got One)

by Anne Laurie|  March 15, 201712:06 am| 38 Comments

This post is in: Grifters Gonna Grift, Open Threads, Post-racial America, Assholes, hoocoodanode, Schadenfreude

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From the Washington Post, “IRS punishes Richard Spencer’s white-nationalist group for failing to file returns“:

The nonprofit organization run by prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer has been stripped of its tax-exempt status after failing to file financial returns for three years.

The Washington Post reported in December that Spencer’s think tank, the National Policy Institute, had been allowed by the federal government to operate in financial secrecy since 2013. The IRS, Spencer said Tuesday, told him a few days ago that his Virginia-based organization had lost tax-exempt status because it hadn’t submitted the necessary records when it was supposed to…

The institute, which promotes a form of American apartheid, has functioned as a public charity that relies heavily on contributions. The IRS almost always requires such organizations to file returns that detail where the money comes from and how it is spent. For reasons the agency still hasn’t explained, Spencer’s group had been categorized among those not obligated to file any returns whatsoever, according to an examination by the Post…

Despite the IRS’s miscue, the experts added, Spencer still had a duty to provide the documents, known as Form 990s. The error allowed the institute to avoid public scrutiny at a time when the alt-right — the term Spencer coined to describe a movement seeking a whites-only state — had garnered international attention…

The setback, Spencer said, shouldn’t devastate the institute’s fundraising efforts, in part because many donors wish to remain anonymous and wouldn’t claim the tax deduction anyway…

Gosh, one wonders why those generous individuals should be so shy about their public-spirited philanthropy?

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Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 15, 2017 at 12:09 am

    Woo hoo! Here’s to the IRS tossing a haymaker at a Nazi!

  2. 2.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 15, 2017 at 12:12 am

    Oh, well. I am so upset…. Golly. Deal with it, you racist fuck.

  3. 3.

    efgoldman

    March 15, 2017 at 12:23 am

    Spencer’s think tank, the National Policy Institute, had been allowed by the federal government to operate in financial secrecy since 2013.

    What the fuck?

  4. 4.

    amk

    March 15, 2017 at 12:23 am

    how in the hell all these ratfucking ‘policy groups/ think tanks’, even get a tax exempt status?

  5. 5.

    Victor Matheson

    March 15, 2017 at 12:24 am

    While I agree that it probably doesn’t make a ton of difference in donations, it does mean those donations are subject to corporate income tax (to the extent they exceed costs of operations.)

  6. 6.

    Major Major Major Major

    March 15, 2017 at 12:27 am

    Should I see Monet: The Early Years, braintrust?

  7. 7.

    Felonius Monk

    March 15, 2017 at 12:27 am

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Here’s to the IRS tossing a haymaker at a Nazi!

    Too bad it wasn’t a live grenade. Maybe next time.

  8. 8.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    March 15, 2017 at 12:29 am

    @efgoldman: Yeah… but… but Obama had the IRS TARGET conservative non-profits…

    No wait… that doesn’t help the narrative… sorry… now I’m confused…

  9. 9.

    hovercraft

    March 15, 2017 at 12:30 am

    @efgoldman:
    So much for Obama’s IRS targeting conservative groups? I’m sure the GOP will get right on clearing Lois Lerner and the IRS commissioner they impeached or tried to, am I right?
    @amk:
    They are not partisan issue groups, don’t you know anything?

  10. 10.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    March 15, 2017 at 12:30 am

    @Major Major Major Major: Oh hell yes…

    The only problem will be the crowds…

  11. 11.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    March 15, 2017 at 12:32 am

    @amk: They have to apply to the IRS for the designation…

    I was a non-profit bookkeeper for a decade…

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 15, 2017 at 12:33 am

    Spencer’s think tank

    I’m not sure there’s much thinking going on here as much as there is raging.

  13. 13.

    efgoldman

    March 15, 2017 at 12:38 am

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    I was a non-profit bookkeeper for a decade…

    You didn’t get paid?

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    there’s much thinking going on here as much as there is raging.

    More tanking, I think. Fucking amazing how these RW assholes manage to skate right up to the edge, and stop JUST before they get arrested/indicted.
    O’Keefe being the exception, but all that proves is he’s stupid beyond belief.

  14. 14.

    Aardvark Cheeselog

    March 15, 2017 at 12:42 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: “Right-wing ragetank” is going into my vocabulary.

  15. 15.

    TheDeadlyShoe

    March 15, 2017 at 12:45 am

    I’m saddened but unsurprised that the IRS was unwilling to touch right wing groups with a ten foot pole after the tea party debacle. God forbid that blatantly political groups be treated as such…

  16. 16.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    March 15, 2017 at 12:50 am

    @efgoldman: Not as much as I should have, for what I did…

    I have since moved on…

  17. 17.

    Suzanne

    March 15, 2017 at 1:01 am

    @efgoldman: Hopefully, the gubmint let them operate in secret while they spied on them through the microwave in the break room.

  18. 18.

    efgoldman

    March 15, 2017 at 1:02 am

    @Suzanne:

    while they spied on them through the microwave in the break room.

    It was the fridge in our break room.

  19. 19.

    Calouste

    March 15, 2017 at 1:15 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: I’m sure they think about tanks a lot.

  20. 20.

    efgoldman

    March 15, 2017 at 1:20 am

    @Calouste:

    they think about tanks a lot.

    Their manners probably aren’t that good.

  21. 21.

    Yutsano

    March 15, 2017 at 1:24 am

    @TheDeadlyShoe: This is an easy call to the point where it’s almost automatic. Part of the rules for filing under 501(c) status is you’re required to file every year to demonstrate you’re following the non-profit rules. Don’t file? You’re kicked out. So Spencer wasn’t following the law somewhere that they willfully didn’t file. So yup your exempt status evaporates and they get a nice bill now.

    Couldn’t happen to a nicer set of assholes.

  22. 22.

    Yutsano

    March 15, 2017 at 1:36 am

    BTW post title is BEAUTIFUL AL!

  23. 23.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 15, 2017 at 1:42 am

    @efgoldman: ISWYDT

  24. 24.

    normal liberal

    March 15, 2017 at 1:44 am

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Absolutely. How do you feel about throngs of people closing in around you as they heave their way through the galleries? Can you go at some odd time of day not as likely to be crowded?
    Long, long ago I was part of a school group taken to a massive Renoir exhibition at the Art Institute in Chicago. It was insane. Some idiot had instructed us to search out a handful of “important” paintings-sadly, there were hundreds of other people attempting the same thing, and all taller than me. I snuck off to the Thorne Rooms.
    In other words, decide on an escape route ahead of time.

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 15, 2017 at 1:54 am

    @normal liberal: My visit to the Louvre was like that. It was the second week of November, the crowds were rather sparse, but there was this never ending knot of humanity around the Mona Lisa. I drank in all the David on the next gallery over pretty much totally by myself though, and it is something I’ll never forget.

  26. 26.

    Major Major Major Major

    March 15, 2017 at 2:02 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: I had a very similar experience at the Louvre!

    @normal liberal: Hmm. Well, I am tall…

  27. 27.

    normal liberal

    March 15, 2017 at 2:16 am

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Everyone seems to have that experience with the Mona Lisa. The National Gallery in DC has a da Vinci portrait of a seriously pissed off Ginevra de Benci; every time I’ve been there no one seems the least bit interested.

  28. 28.

    Major Major Major Major

    March 15, 2017 at 2:19 am

    @normal liberal: To be honest I didn’t even try to get a very good view of the Mona Lisa.

  29. 29.

    Ian

    March 15, 2017 at 2:20 am

    @TheDeadlyShoe:
    Wrong angle of attack. Re-instituting campaign donation limits (citizens united) would stop this farce dead in its tracks.

  30. 30.

    Major Major Major Major

    March 15, 2017 at 2:21 am

    @Ian: I suspect that amending the constitution or trying to overturn recent SCOTUS precedent may in fact be the wrong angles of attack.

  31. 31.

    opiejeanne

    March 15, 2017 at 3:17 am

    @Major Major Major Major: It was the Venus de Milo that was swamped when we visited the Louvre. We had to wait a few minutes for the tour group/mob to move on to the next point, and then we got a good look. Same with the Mona Lisa. I was behind that same group when they all suddenly left, and I was in the front row.
    One of my favorites was starting up the stairs and looking up at the Winged Victory of Samothrace just as the clouds outside parted and the sun came out and lit the statue.

  32. 32.

    joel hanes

    March 15, 2017 at 5:24 am

    990 Reasons

    all in a line
    all of them good ones
    alllll of them lies

  33. 33.

    joel hanes

    March 15, 2017 at 5:28 am

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    My visit to the Louvre

    The winged Nike of Samothrace hit me hard.

  34. 34.

    Applejinx

    March 15, 2017 at 6:21 am

    @normal liberal: You can still find at least one copy of the Robert Hughes documentary, The Mona Lisa Curse, online.

    It’s well worth watching. It’s a compelling deconstruction of the damage market capitalism has done to the world, viewed through the lens of fine art: speculation ended up completely distorting the very concept of art. The Mona Lisa is a fine painting, but it’s only THE MONA LISA because of circular reasoning: because it is by far the most valuable thing in painting, it’s the most valuable thing in painting, because it’s so valuable. It’s a celebrity painting, a Kim Kardashian buttock of a painting.

    Same thing for so many hyper-valuable things, including the very treasures of the richest people in the world. They are hyper-valuable because they’re hyper-valuable, so all this effort goes into reforming the bones of society itself to support and further exaggerate this idea of value, yet it is a complete phantasm. The whole thing is broken, and it’s killing us.

  35. 35.

    prob50

    March 15, 2017 at 8:04 am

    @joel hanes:

    all in a line
    all of them good ones
    alllll of them lies

    Nice CSN reference.

  36. 36.

    Ohio Mom

    March 15, 2017 at 8:26 am

    @Applejinx: I think this effect is very noticeable when attributions change: everyone thought the painting was a masterpiece when it was mistakenly thought to have been created by Famous Artist but when the experts decide that it was actually painted by one of Famous Artist’s students, the painting is suddenly downgraded to Meh.

    And it goes in the other direction, too. Wait! This wasn’t painted by Famous Artist’s student, it was painted by Famous Artist himself? I never noticed how fabulous it was before!

    As a former art student, makes my head spin.

  37. 37.

    BC in Illinois

    March 15, 2017 at 9:45 am

    @Major Major Major Major:
    @Villago Delenda Est:
    I remember my teen-aged visit to see the Mona Lisa in Washington DC.. My mother had seen it in the Louvre and she took me to the National Gallery of Art, Jan-Feb 1963. As you came in the front entrance, the Mona Lisa was in a gallery to the left. The line started – – to the right – – and wandered through virtually the whole first floor. By the time you got to see the Mona Lisa, you had seen an overview of the history of western art. It was a great day for my art education.

  38. 38.

    Major Major Major Major

    March 15, 2017 at 9:47 am

    @Ohio Mom: That’s all funny but I’d hardly call it “the damage market capitalism has done to the world.” The same shit happened in ancient Egypt.

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