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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)

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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?

Reader Interactions

38Comments

  3. 3.

    efgoldman

    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

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

  5. 5.

    Victor Matheson

    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.)

  8. 8.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @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

    @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?

  11. 11.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @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

    Spencer’s think tank

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

  13. 13.

    efgoldman

    @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.

  15. 15.

    TheDeadlyShoe

    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…

  21. 21.

    Yutsano

    @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.

  24. 24.

    normal liberal

    @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

    @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.

  27. 27.

    normal liberal

    @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.

  31. 31.

    opiejeanne

    @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.

  34. 34.

    Applejinx

    @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.

  36. 36.

    Ohio Mom

    @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

    @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.

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