The War On Charity? - IRS Audits Of Non-Profts Up 79%

It seems Obama's IR-S.S. has waged war on charities too.

A report from FOX (a few months ago) by Stuart Varney hits the nails on the heads....

He says the "Government" wants full control....not private enterprise charities.

this is an example of full blown commie tactics.

this report was a warning shot.

"The War On Charity? - IRS Audits Of Non-Profts Up 79%" ( Published on Feb 6, 2013

Economic 'Downer' On Rise - Unemployment, Poverty, Gas & EBT Up!!
The War On Charity? - IRS Audits Of Non-Profts Up 79% - Stuart Varney)

The IR-S.S. has gone overboard !!

They smell like White House Advisors to me

reply to post by xuenchen

this is an example of full blown commie tactics.

Do you know anything about the "charity" industry? They are mostly set op for tax purposes and write offs. Many of the well known branded ones send off 50% + to "administrative costs" and even the ones that actually do get money where it's intended to go, the executives often have 6 figure salaries. Sometimes 7.

Here's some top ten lists, where you can find charities paying 80% of revenue to fundraising groups. Use that source and find good ones and bad... There are some good ones, but a lot of bogus BS ones in the mix.

reply to post by boncho


And if the "Government" was at the helm,

the "Administrative" expenses would be 10 fold,

and the provided services would be 90% less !!

Originally posted by xuenchen
reply to post by boncho

 

And if the "Government" was at the helm,

the "Administrative" expenses would be 10 fold,

and the provided services would be 90% less !!

What does that have to do with anything? If the IRS audits a charity that is dropping 90% of money in to a "fundraising service" (see.:boiler room with auto dialers.) Than what's the problem?

There was a charity fund raising service in the news awhile back cause one of it's heads had luxury yachts, bragged about thousand dollar shoes, 5000 dollar suits, trips and a bunch of other stuff on his blog.

SO you are mad about an organization like that getting audited?

Pretty much...

ALL Not-For-Profit "organisations/charities" should be heavily scrutinized due to possible money laundering and tax evasion.
Not that I approve of all the taxes anyway, but still... If a "charity" is bringing in over $100M per year and it is a front for tax evasion, that is a lot of rich people getting richer.

No one wants that except the rich.

We need a Robin Hood.

Originally posted by Sovaka
Pretty much...

ALL Not-For-Profit "organisations/charities" should be heavily scrutinized due to possible money laundering and tax evasion.
Not that I approve of all the taxes anyway, but still... If a "charity" is bringing in over $100M per year and it is a front for tax evasion, that is a lot of rich people getting richer.

No one wants that except the rich.

We need a Robin Hood.

If somebody draws a salary from a charity organization.....

don't they pay taxes as individuals ???

how about contractors who provide services for charities ???

I think the "tax free" stuff goes to the recipients who are deemed to be "needy".

how about expenses paid like utilities etc.
All that is taxed somewhere down the line.

Originally posted by xuenchen
reply to post by boncho

 

And if the "Government" was at the helm,

the "Administrative" expenses would be 10 fold,

and the provided services would be 90% less !!

For starters, I don't believe you have one ounce of evidence to back up this claim, so I'm calling "liar, liar, pants on fire!"

If I'm not mistaken, Medicare has an administrative cost somewhere in the 3% range.

These "charitable" organizations SHOULD be heavily scrutinized because many, if not most, of them are created for purposes other than charity. Charity is just the curtain they've chosen to hide behind.

Secondly, the reason that there are very few prosecutions is primarily due to the fact that our tax code has been unilaterally re-defined to allow these abuses. I started a thread about this here; www.abovetopsecret.com...
It includes this video from The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell that pretty much explains the situation we're in now and how we got here. Apparently it all started in 1959.

Originally posted by boncho
reply to post by xuenchen

this is an example of full blown commie tactics.

 

Do you know anything about the "charity" industry? They are mostly set op for tax purposes and write offs. Many of the well known branded ones send off 50% + to "administrative costs" and even the ones that actually do get money where it's intended to go, the executives often have 6 figure salaries. Sometimes 7.

Here's some top ten lists, where you can find charities paying 80% of revenue to fundraising groups. Use that source and find good ones and bad... There are some good ones, but a lot of bogus BS ones in the mix.

edit on 18-5-2013 by boncho because: (no reason given)

I completely agree with you....and if these corrupt charities are indeed the one's being targeted...sounds great right?

The problem I see is with more "grass roots" type of charities being over burdened with taxes and laws that effectively make giving to others a legal matter...an example I can think of is a Grandma in a poor neighborhood that cooked hot meals everyday for the kids that might not otherwise have a hot meal....and she was harassed, and had to pay unreasonable fines or stop feeding the kids...very sad...

It just seems that the one's that should be regulated, have big time lawyers, and loop holes to justify becoming filthy rich as a CEO of a charity, but the old lady who cooks for the kids is somehow a criminal ?

reply to post by Flatfish


Medicare isn't a charity by law.

And Medicare's "costs" I think are more than private insurance companies ?

However, on a per-person basis Medicare's administrative costs are actually higher than those of private insurance--this despite the fact that private insurance companies do incur several categories of costs that do not apply to Medicare. If recent cost history is any guide, switching the more than 200 million Americans with private insurance to a public plan will not save money but will actually increase health care administrative costs by several billion dollars.

Medicare Administrative Costs Are Higher, Not Lower, Than for Private Insurance

And I would say the fundraisers' "profits" are not tax exempt ?
Fundraisers pay salaries and commissions.....all taxable eventually.
Those fundraisers are providing taxable jobs.

Government doesn't like competition hence the decade long war on charity

Money is only suppose to come from goverment BY FORCED taxation.

There is a place in heaven to those who give of their own free will.

There is a place in hell for those who think robbing from the rich and giving to the poor is 'moral'

reply to post by xuenchen


Look, nothing could be further from the truth and if you're going to reference the Heritage Foundation as a source of facts, which is laughable in itself, then I will refer you to this piece;

krugman.blogs.nytimes.com...

These administrative spending numbers have been challenged on the grounds that they exclude some aspects of Medicare’s administrative costs, such as the expenses of collecting Medicare premiums and payroll taxes, and because Medicare’s larger average claims because of its older enrollees make its administrative costs look smaller relative to private plan costs than they really are.

However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has found that administrative costs under the public Medicare plan are less than 2 percent of expenditures, compared with approximately 11 percent of spending by private plans under Medicare Advantage. This is a near perfect “apples to apples” comparison of administrative costs, because the public Medicare plan and Medicare Advantage plans are operating under similar rules and treating the same population.

The CBO study suggests that even in the context of basic insurance reforms, such as guaranteed issue and renewability, private plans’ administrative costs are higher than the administrative costs of public insurance. The experience of private plans within FEHBP carries the same conclusion. Under FEHBP, the administrative costs of Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs) average 7 percent, not counting the costs of federal agencies to administer enrollment of employees. Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) participating in FEHBP have administrative costs of 10 to 12 percent.

And now for the best part, when utilizing The Heritage Foundation as a source for factual information, always remember the following rules;

1. Don’t believe anything Heritage says.

2. If you find what Heritage is saying plausible, remember rule 1.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. It's privatization that's driving up the cost of government run insurance;

theincidentaleconomist.com...

This enormous disparity between two measures that used to be almost identical should long ago have triggered inquiries within Congress and the US health policy community as to whether the higher administrative costs associated with the growing privatization of Medicare are justified.

reply to post by Flatfish


You are drifting off topic as usual.

Can you comment on why the IR-S.S. is increasing the audits ?

Do you think the "Govt" is attempting to compete ?

Originally posted by xuenchen
reply to post by Flatfish

 

You are drifting off topic as usual.

Can you comment on why the IR-S.S. is increasing the audits ?

Do you think the "Govt" is attempting to compete ?

Simple, there was a huge increase in audits because of the simple fact that there was a huge increase in the number of groups filing for tax exempt status as "charitable" organizations following the SCOTUS "Citizen's United" decision. It only makes sense that one would lead to the other.

Is the Govt. trying to compete with who, and for what? That question doesn't even make sense.

P.S., I was hardly drifting off topic. Unless of course, you mean that proving you wrong is drifting off topic.

reply to post by xuenchen


In other words not just Right Wing based groups were targeted?
:O

reply to post by xuenchen


I'm thinking that part of the IRS's strategy is to pull the records of named donors in their audit, just so they can then look into those donors financial records.

After all, if they have money to give to charity, they must be shorting the government theirs. Hence, more audits and job security.

Originally posted by xuenchen
Medicare isn't a charity by law.

I never once said they were.

Originally posted by xuenchen
And Medicare's "costs" I think are more than private insurance companies ?

The key words in this statement would be, "I think" and we all know that a chain is only as strong as the weakest link. So there you have it.

Anyone have a list of charities that have been audited?

Can't seem to find any lists.

But we do know that there have been less tax returns filed recently.

According to IRS data, Schweizer writes in a Fox News op-ed piece, the agency audited an average of 6,205 returns of charities each year from 2001 to 2008, but from 2009 to 2011 the number of audited returns spiked to an average of 11,111 per year.

At the same time, he notes, fewer tax-exempt organizations have actually filed IRS returns under Obama than they did under Bush. From 2009 to 2011, the agency received an average of 819,417 returns per year, and from 2001 to 2008 it saw a larger average of 847,898 returns each year.

“What’s going on here?” asks Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and author of "Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy."

"Why is the Obama administration draining precious resources and time from charitable organizations to lawyer up and endure the long hard slog of an IRS audit?"

IRS Audits of Charities Soar Under Obama

I think this adds fuel to the fire for the White House.

They are getting more desperate whenever a new revelation gets exposed.

reply to post by Flatfish

there was a huge increase in audits because of the simple fact that there was a huge increase in the number of groups filing for tax exempt status as "charitable" organizations following the SCOTUS "Citizen's United" decision. It only makes sense that one would lead to the other.

Why would they audit existing organizations just because more new applications were being received ?

Unless of course, that is the "excuse" for the reasons ?

I say the whole thing was political targeting and an attempt to garner support for future agendas that might include government run charities.

Another pet project of somebody we don't even know about yet.

Originally posted by xuenchen

Why would they audit existing organizations just because more new applications were being received ?

I don't know, why would the IRS audit existing taxpayers when new ones are coming on the books every year? If the IRS used your line of reasoning, I'd never have to worry about being audited because I'm an existing taxpayer. Guess what? That ain't how it works.

Originally posted by xuenchen
I say the whole thing was political targeting and an attempt to garner support for future agendas that might include government run charities.

Another pet project of somebody we don't even know about yet.

And you have every right to say those things, it's just that you saying them doesn't make them true. Kinda like you saying that Medicare incurs higher administrative cost than private insurers. You can say it all you want, but it just ain't true.

Originally posted by xuenchen

Originally posted by Sovaka
Pretty much...

ALL Not-For-Profit "organisations/charities" should be heavily scrutinized due to possible money laundering and tax evasion.
Not that I approve of all the taxes anyway, but still... If a "charity" is bringing in over $100M per year and it is a front for tax evasion, that is a lot of rich people getting richer.

No one wants that except the rich.

We need a Robin Hood.

If somebody draws a salary from a charity organization.....

don't they pay taxes as individuals ???

how about contractors who provide services for charities ???

I think the "tax free" stuff goes to the recipients who are deemed to be "needy".

how about expenses paid like utilities etc.
All that is taxed somewhere down the line.

Money coming in can be cash. Aka (For money laundering)

People paying into charity can use it as a tax write off. Or companies can (corporations).

Now, there's many ways to benefit.

You can have a charity, get paid 500,000 for running it. It has a board of directors, but they all volunteer their time.

Well, you hire me, (your buddy) and I raise 90,000,000 for you. BTW sorry, I'm charging you 75,000,000 for the service. But don't worry, you can pay your 500k salary with your cut. Don't worry, my company is gonna cut you a check in Switzerland for letting us charge you out the ass. Oh, your other buddy has 5 million cash he needs cleaned up. SO he gives it do you in donations (it's put down as collections) then you happen to hire his company for consulting, and what do you know, you pay him 4.5 for it. 0.5 is spent on "expenses" for you. (Price of doing business.)

But yes, people pay taxes on what they earn. Theoretically, they could kick it back to the charity though in write offs. Then you get to play with it again.

I'm not saying every charity does this, but this is why the IRS audits them... Because of the possibility.