ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis told Fox News’ Chris Wallace on Sunday that her group “absolutely pays its taxes.” Not true: The IRS and Louisiana’s taxmen have imposed nearly $2 million in liens against ACORN for failing to fork over taxes at its New Orleans national headquarters.
The IRS recently filed a $548,000 lien against the group, and Louisiana state tax officials have slapped $334,000 in liens on ACORN since last October.
Evidence that ACORN ignored its tax obligations may be less exciting than its branch offices’ eagerness to help a self-professed pimp break multiple laws, or the voter-registration fraud for which various of its workers have been convicted.
But the tax mess shows that the lawlessness starts at its headquarters. (ACORN actually has three national HQs — in the Big Easy, Washington, DC, and New York City.)
Another New Orleans group, the free-market Pelican Institute for Public Policy, uncovered official records that confirm ACORN’s deadbeat tax status. (Full disclosure: Pelican hosted my visit to New Orleans last May.)
At the Orleans Parish Clerk of Courts Office, Pelican researcher Steve Beatty found a Sept. 3 IRS filing showing that “Elysian Fields Corp., Inc., Alter Ego of ACORN” skipped five quarterly withholding-tax payments — covering income, Social Security and Medicare levies — in 2005-08, and made no federal unemployment-tax payments for the fourth quarters of 2007 and 2008.
“We have made a demand for payment of this liability, but it remains unpaid,” reads IRS form 668(Y). So the federal taxmen have placed liens on ACORN’s New Orleans offices at 2609 Canal St. and 2610 Iberville St.
This follows a $1 million invoice that the IRS already had handed ACORN, as Pelican reported last August. The group’s in trouble with the state, too.
“We have a full-scale investigation into ACORN and all of its subsidiaries,” Tammi Arender, spokeswoman for Louisiana Attorney General Bobby Caldwell, said recently. “No stone will be left unturned. We’re still looking into their recent activities.”
Caldwell subpoenaed ACORN, former ACORN head Wade Rathke and the group’s financial institution, Whitney Bank. Caldwell seeks information stretching back to 1998 on ACORN and some 361 tax-exempt and non-tax-exempt outfits in its universe.
Citizens Consulting, Inc. — ACORN’s bookkeeping arm, no less — scored a Louisiana “Notice of State Tax Assessment and Lien” on Oct. 29, 2008. It details 66 withholding-tax payments that Citizens Consulting skipped in 2002-08, totaling more than $300,000.
These documents are online at pelicaninstitute.org. American taxpayers have to struggle to pay their taxes in full and on time. Meanwhile, ACORN routinely has ignored its duty — even as it has continued to collect millions of taxpayer dollars from the government.
Since 1989, at least $53 million has flowed from law-abiding taxpayers, via Washington, into the coffers of ACORN and its branches.
ACORN, in turn, stiffs its workers by failing to pay for their Social Security and Medicare benefits. One expects better from self-styled “progressives.”
ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson did not reply to repeated requests for comment.
In overwhelming numbers, the Senate and House voted last week to terminate ACORN’s federal funding. Given ACORN’s history of corruption and illegal support of Democratic political candidates, Congress should go further and rescind the tax-exempt status of ACORN and its subsidiaries.
Deroy Murdock is a syndicated columnist and a Hoover Institution media fellow.