Clinton Charities Will Refile Tax Returns, Audit for Other Errors

[thesquanderer]

Source: New York Times

NEW YORK — Hillary Clinton's family's charities are refiling at least five annual tax returns after a Reuters review found errors in how they reported donations from governments, and said they may audit other Clinton Foundation returns in case of other errors.

...

The charities' errors generally take the form of under-reporting or over-reporting, by millions of dollars, donations from foreign governments, or in other instances omitting to break out government donations entirely when reporting revenue, the charities confirmed to Reuters.

...

For three years in a row beginning in 2010, the Clinton Foundation reported to the IRS that it received zero in funds from foreign and U.S. governments, a dramatic fall-off from the tens of millions of dollars in foreign government contributions reported in preceding years.

Those entries were errors, according to the foundation: several foreign governments continued to give tens of millions of dollars toward the foundation's work on climate change and economic development through this three-year period. Those governments were identified on the foundation's annually updated donor list, along with broad indications of how much each had cumulatively given since they began donating.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/04/23/us/politics/23reuters-usa-election-clinton-taxes-exclusive.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[OKNancy]

1. and

The unsettled numbers on the tax returns are not evidence of wrongdoing but tend to undermine the 990s role as a form of public accountability, experts in charity law and transparency advocates interview told Reuters.

"No charity is required to disclose their donors," he said. "However, we voluntarily disclose our more than 300,000 donors and post our audited financial statements on our website along with the 990s for anyone to see."

[Scuba]

3. You are correct that this is not evidence of wrongdoing. Not very comforting, though.

[karynnj]

5. "tend to undermine accountability" is not good

As to disclosing donors, it ignores the unusual circumstances -- ie HRC was the Secretary of State and much of the reason for having to be more transparent was that it was a concern when she became SoS.

Remember that there was a carefully worked out agreement with the Obama team to insure that there was no possibility of an ethics issue. From my perspective now -- that agreement, demanded by Obama and the Senate -- would also protect Clinton NOW if it was scrupulously adhered to.

Their response is good, but the fact that this an issue at all is not good.

[cynzke]

2. The Crux Of These Donations!

Remember when you see the nasty crap the right wingers will be slinging....."several foreign governments continued to give tens of millions of dollars toward the foundation's work on climate change and economic development" Money for CLIMATE CHANGE and ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. But it IS POSSIBLE for foreign money to influence elections.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/foreign-dark-money-2012-election-nonprofit

[Abouttime]

6. No wrongdoing, nothing illegal

Just more muckraking by the right wing media, they've been after the Clintons for the last 25 years and none of their mud has stuck to the wall.
Seriously, get used to it, we're going to read this crap every day. Hillary will be our next President.

[karynnj]

4. This error would also have made it look like they had very seriously stopped

foreign contributions to scrupulously abide with the agreement to Obama. She MAY have complied with both the spirit and the words of that agreement -- and if she did (as we will see), the agreement will have protected her from these kinds of accusations. However, the reports could be used by the rest of administration to claim they knew nothing of anything that could have given the appearance of conflict of interest.

I hope those involved with creating these reports are not on her current team. If this is just an error, they are not that competent.

[thesquanderer]

7. There are some things that make it a little suspicious sounding to me

One thing was the reference to "under-reporting or over-reporting" -- i.e. it wasn't just that they reported receiving "zero in funds from foreign and U.S. governments" (under-reporting), but also that they over-reported funds received from others. Assuming that the amount under (or un-) reported from some sources exactly balances the amount over-reported from others would mean that the totals are still correct, which is a good thing, in that the financials themselves are ultimately still sound, the bottom line figures remain accurate. But this also would seem to make it harder to believe that the "error" was accidental, the way a simple omission would be (i.e. "accidental" errors don't tend to balance themselves out with additional perfectly balancing errors somewhere else)... though yes, it can happen, basically by mis-categorizing a single entry. Yet it would still seem kind of eyebrow-raisingly coincidental that the "accidental" zero-reports (or mis-categorized contributions) were from exactly the sources that would be scrutinzed (i.e. foreign governments). And then it seems awfully "coincidental" again that the same error appeared to happen year after year, even though previous years' figures had apparently been handled correctly.

By "moving" contributions from one source to another on paper (keeping the totals the same, even if the source was not accurate), they are probably not doing anything wrong form the IRS' perspecive, because the total contributions listed is still correct. So I think it is more a political issue than a legal or tax one. Even the agreement with the Obama administration you talk about may not have been something legally binding or with any enforceable penalty associated with it. At least technically, as AboutTime says, there is almost certainly "no wrongdoing, nothing illegal."

My feeling about the whole thing, though, innocuous error or not, is that it plays into the anti-Clinton meme that they operate under their own rules. Finding a way that is technically legal to conceal something to mislead is exactly the kind of thing that plays into that, and whether this turns out to be an example of that or not, it sounds like it could be. It goes right back to what the meaning of "is" is. Bill was absolutely correct in that defense, but it played terribly. They really need to avoid any perception of being coy with the facts.