IRS and Non Profit Status

May 21, 2013 — charity scam, IRS, public servants, tax fraud, waste

Food handling

food charity scam in action

charity scam

donation drop off

food handling

truck of used bread

food handling

unload and load

holiday traffic

The current uproar at the IRS highlights the  much misunderstood function of granting tax exempt status and enforcing it. I have gone through the process of obtaining a 501C3 permit to run a non-profit corporation, and can tell you it is exhaustive and thorough. Like Medicare fraud, there must be pros who go about cheating and defrauding the system from within. Tax exempt status is given to legitimate corporations willing to go through strict accounting documentation to prove that they are satisfying the mission they stated in the original application. By submitting in good faith to this non-profit status scrutiny they are subject to a review of their activities constantly.  Applying for the status is technical and rigorous, as it should be.  Keeping it is equally serious in nature.

Going completely commando, soliciting donations from the public without any IRS permit or reporting of the donations whatsoever is the highly lucrative method that has been used in my neighborhood for many years.  They have begged openly for donations of  food, money, items, and labor.  They ask for public support to store prepare food in a residential condo to be served randomly to presumably homeless people they find in parks. No laws are obeyed, from zoning, to health code, to revenue laws.  They openly ask for donations on the internet, although multiple law enforcement agencies have been informed for many years of the crimes.  This self-appointed charity does not feel the need to obey any laws because no laws are enforced.  The lack of interest of  the government agencies could be seen as negligence.  You might believe, if you love conspiracy theory, that since these charity folks presumably vote liberal democratic tickets, they are allowed with the collusion of our local government, to break all these laws. That is too silly.

I don’t believe there is a conscious effort by government to allow crime to take over the neighborhood.  My impression is that public servants feel resentful about serving the public.  When opportunity arises to feel powerful through corruption, the loyalty of any public servant to act for the benefit of all concerned is questionable. This is where mental illness diagnosis is important.  If only insane and or incompetent people are left to run the government, the government will continue to act against the citizens’ best interests.  I do not think we have good or effective governance.  I do not trust that the money collected by the IRS is well spent.  I have always paid taxes, and benefit from no loopholes.  I pay taxes knowing it must be done.  Waste and corruption are not what I want to buy with my tax dollars, but they are all I see on the menu at the moment.