The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has unexpectedly and retroactively granted tax-exempt 501 (c)(3) status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation following our formal Complaint that the Foundation was soliciting tax-deductible contributions without such status.
The Foundation is headed by Abon’go Malik Obama, President Obama’s half-brother, and named for their common father. It came under scrutiny earlier this year when NLPC raised questions about its tax status and what has happened to the money it has raised.
It normally takes at least six months, and usually longer, for the IRS to grant tax-exempt status to an organization following its application. It appears that the earliest that it could have applied was May of this year, yet it received a determination letter in June, retroactive to 2008.
According to a May 8 New York Post story by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein:
Alton Ray Baysden, a former State Department employee at whose Virginia home the charity was founded in 2008, admitted the organization has not even applied for tax-exempt status.
“We haven’t been able to find someone with the expertise to do this,” he told The Post. “We are informally scouting for an executive director, someone who knows how to register the charity.”
The IRS confirmed this week to Jerome Corsi of WorldNetDaily that the Foundation had received the letter granting tax-exempt status. From his article:
“Since one of the Obama Foundation’s founders and directors, Mr. Alton R. Baysden, stated publicly in May 2011 that the foundation had not even applied for tax-exempt status, it is inconceivable that the IRS can now claim that the status was granted in June 2011, retroactive to 2008,” Ken Boehm, the head of the National Legal and Policy Center, told WND.
“This appears to be political favoritism to the president’s brother,” Boehm told WND. “It cries out for an investigation.”
Related:
Obama Foundation Drops Bogus Tax-Deductibility Claim
Boehm: Obama’s Brother Runs ‘Fake’ Charity
Boehm: Where is Obama Foundation Money Going?
IRS Asked to Investigate Charity Run by Obama’s Brother