By Matthew Vadum ——Bio and Archives--September 25, 2009
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Please provide the number of returns prepared at ACORN tax clinics for the last five years. Does the IRS intend to review these returns for accuracy? Please confirm that IRS will terminate its relationship with all organizations in the ACORN family, particularly those reviewed by my staff. Does the IRS intend to renew its relationship with ACORN after ACORN completes its internal review?Grassley is referring to the IRS announcement yesterday that it dropped ACORN from its Volunteer Income Tax Preparation (VITA) program, a volunteer tax assistance program through which around 3 million low- and moderate-income tax filers received free advice this year. ACORN provided help on approximately 25,000 returns, the IRS said yesterday. Grassley also wrote “[i]t is disturbing that many of the organizations in the ACORN “family” may not actually meet the definition of related for 990 reporting purposes, even though ACORN deems them to be part of the ‘family.’” A “990″ is an IRS Form 990 which is a nonprofit organization’s annual tax return. In what may foreshadow a future demand for a forensic audit of ACORN, the senator also asks what procedures the IRS follows when “auditing organizations like this where the movement of money appears to be a shell game.” He asks, “Do IRS audit procedures require auditors to follow the money trail to or from a charitable organization to determine whether that money is being used for impermissible activities, including electioneering and promoting illegal acts?” Finally, Grassley suggests ACORN might be a massive criminal conspiracy. He wrote:
Given what looks like a shell game perpetrated by the ACORN tax-exempt entities appears to be no different than that conducted by the charities involved in the Jack Abramoff scandal, how have IRS rules, regulations, reporting requirements and enforcement actions changed in response to the Abramoff abuses?Grassley set an Oct. 9 deadline for the IRS to respond. This breaking story was updated twice.
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Matthew Vadum, matthewvadum.blogspot.com, is an investigative reporter.
His new book Subversion Inc. can be bought at Amazon.com (US), Amazon.ca (Canada)
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