Posted on 03/04/2009 11:31:22 AM PST by STARWISE
CBS Evening News: Educational Nonprofit Under Fire For Transporting Politicians With Money That Could Have Gone To Students
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Educap is a multibillion-dollar student loan charity run by CEO Catherine Reynolds. As CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reported Monday night,
Educap is under investigation by the IRS and Congress for alleged abuse of its tax-exempt status because it charges high interest on charitable student loans, and provides lavish perks with millions in compensation for Reynolds and her husband.
CBS News has obtained exclusive details of what may have been the biggest charity perk: use of Educap's $31 million luxury jet, which costs thousands of dollars an hour to operate.
Investigators say for five years, Reynolds jetted friends, family and luminaries to faraway and exotic destinations that sometimes had little to do with the charity's mission.
CBS News has learned that high-profile names on the Educap flight list include CIA Director Leon Panetta, former Sens. Tom Daschle and Ted Stevens, former FBI Director William Sessions and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
~~ Yeah, the Pubbies are the wealthy, country club set ...snarky PING!
CBS is reporting this? Did I awake in a parallel universe?
Student Loan Charity Under Fire
CBS Evening News: Is One Educational Charity Abusing Their Status With Lavish Travel And Huge Salaries?
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For 20 years, Catherine Reynolds has guided the non-profit student loan charity Educap as it’s lent billions of dollars to hundreds of thousands of college students.
Reynolds has become a leading philanthropist, donating money made from those charity loans to many worthy causes.
But now, CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports, the IRS and Congressional investigators are probing allegations of a darker side to Reynolds’ student loan charity - where family and friends benefit from the charity dime, and executives enjoy big salaries and perks such as private jet travel and lavish retreats.
While Reynolds donated profits from Educap loans to other charities in 2007, it turns out the biggest grant by far - one for $8 million - went to the Academy of Achievement, which happens to be run by her husband Wayne.
He then paid himself and a company he owns $1.5 million, according to tax records. Investigators are trying to unravel the complex ties between the husband-and-wife charities, which are so intertwined that the self-dealing and relationship disclosures span eight pages of tax filings.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/02/eveningnews/main4839552.shtml
Look here.
Another non profit limoing and flying rats around the globe.
hey I watched a show on the history or discovery channel last night about parallel universes so you never know. Perhaps in the many parralel universes that supposedly exists there is one with a real unbiased media that actually reports on corruption even if it’s in the democrat party. It sure isn’t the universe I inhabit but you just never know.
Clearly, former Republican Senator Ted Stevens using the jet was an example of corruption of the worst kind at the highest levels.
In the case of the Democrats, not so much.
/s
Obama's budget replaces the private student loan program with a government program. This is just the first stage in justifying that law...deamonizing private lenders of student loans. CBS is doing what Obama told them to do.
Liquidate the fund and pay off the national debt...
The Demarxists are masters of accusing republicans of the nefarious deeds that they themselves are engaged in.
BTTT
I watched this last night on CBS - NO MENTION of Party Affiliation for the politicians mentioned. NO MENTION.
Part of the Obama strategy to have the USG takeover the student loan program and get the private sector out of it.
Story must have been about to break soon. Otherwise we never would have heard about this.
Not that it will matter. They will say they are sorry. Story ovah...........!
This is the story behind the story.
Investigators may be looking at the legal parameters of prosecutable crimes including making false statements to state and federal officials, filing falsified documents, obstruction of proceedings before state and federal agencies, fiduciary negligence, and obstruction of US justice.
The scheme might have facilitated IRS fraud by integrating:
1. Secret control over fund-raising committees.
2. Requiring only one signature on tax-exempt bank checks.
3. Utilizing pre-signed tax-exempt bank checks.
4. Using secret bank accounts to keep secret its actual financial position.
5. Assigning bank deposit and account reconciliation functions to one person.
6. Conspiring to hide oversight of expenses and supporting vouchers from public view.
7. Having no outside auditor to review tax-exempt statements.
8. Cashing unusually large amounts of tax-exempt checks.
9. Having no official deposit and withdrawal control system.
Authorities should investigate Reynolds/Educap's US Postal Service mailings, wire transfers, computer transfers, electronic submissions, and unregulated money transfers, and all bank transfers connected to secret tax-exempt non-profits’ bank accounts.
Fraudulent tax-exempt activities might have involved using checks passed from one account to another in multiple conspiracies to launder monies.
The stratagem could have been international in its scope due to Reynolds/Educap's worldwide connections----she and the pols seemed to do a lot of island-hopping, to places that are notorious tax havens.
Authorities need to determine the extent to which donors to Reynolds/Educap colluded in schemes that may have included misusing reserve bank accounts, concealing transfers, inflating asset values and improperly accounting for transactions.
A formal inquiry should be conducted into Reynolds/Educap financial activities with officers of publicly-held companies) including (1) Enron-style accounting frauds by manipulating official records, (2) bundling contributions into the pockets of politicians, (3) the extent to which Educap networks are financing political candidates---perhaps in the names of business partners without their knowledge or consent, (4) the extent to which officers of publicly-held companies used accounting fraud to hide illegal campaign contributions, and, (5) the extent to which campaign donations exceeded campaign-finance limits.
Charges might include Reynolds/Educap accounting managers misappropriating tax-exempt funds to cover personal expenses, fraudulently overcharging for management services, diverting non-profit funds, then converting them to campaign accounts, or in the style of WorldCom greed spending thousands of non-profit dollars on organization credit cards for personal expenses.
A formal inquiry should be undertaken with respect to Reynolds/Educap's relatives, associates, co-conspirators or subsets of them, and donors (particularly officers of publicly-held companies), the business dealings between recipients, employees and elected and appointed officials and the extent to which influence-peddling is taking place, and more specifically the extent to which relatives, associates, and principles of Reynolds/Educap and their co-conspirators or subsets of them, directed political activities from tax-free non-profit organizations in illegal arrangements.
The BIGGEST FRAUDS are between foundation and foundation .....writing checks to eachother --- the MO for laundering tax-exempt monies for personal--perhaps political--- use.
Authorities need to determine the extent to which Reynolds/Educap manipulated philanthropic transactions, such as:
(1) loans, the (2) sale, (3) exchange or (4) leasing of Educap property to related organizations, and donors, and the extent to which organizations reported (5) "excess benefit transactions" on Form 990, and, (6) the extent to which executive pay properly accounted for with the IRS.
Reynolds/Educap need to reveal the dimension of contributions these organizations that may have been illegally redirected to political activity and be requested to explain:
(1) how Reynolds/Educap solicited non-profit contributions,
(2) how non-profit donations were made, and,
(3) the manner in which donors to Reynolds/Educap (particularly officers of publicly-held companies allocated company assets).
Reynolds/Educap should be asked for details about who inside, and outside, these organizations is soliciting contributions, how the various subcommittees are funded, and the extent to which Reynolds/Educap donors (particularly officers of publicly-held companies) are colluding to perhaps finance political campaigns surreptitiously, and are engaging in other illegal transactions.
PHONE IRS TOLL-FREE
1-800-829-0433----you may remain anonymous.
EMAIL .......OAAG.Tax@tax.USDOJ.gov.
Took so long to expose this......... means she had a lot of political cover.
Are trips on this jet considered income? Did Daschle et al pay taxes on them?
Originally posted: March 10, 2009
Daley, Tutu mock reporters asking about mayor’s private jet trips
In a surreal scene that ended with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu giving mock absolution to Chicago’s City Hall reporters, Mayor Richard Daley today discussed flying on a private jet owned by a non-profit student loan group connected to his wife’s former employer.
While the mayor was on vacation last week, CBS News reported that the Daleys had taken 58 flights on a jet owned by EduCap. That Washington-based organization funded the Academy of Achievement, which employed Maggie Daley as a consultant in recent years to set up conferences.
Last week, Daley spokeswoman Jacquelyn Heard said the mayor had only gone on one flight to Singapore on the private jet.
Today, during his first news conference since the story broke, Daley was asked how often he had flown on the jet.
“Once or twice, we pointed that out. Yes, you’ve got all the facts on that,” the mayor replied.
excerpt
Mayor Richard Daley and his wife went to Singapore in 2006 on a private jet furnished by a student loan charity that provided funding for Maggie Daley’s employer at the time.
Federal tax records show that EduCap donates millions of dollars a year to the Academy of Achievement, a non-profit group that paid Maggie Daley $100,000 in 2006 and $50,000 in 2007.
The Academy of Achievement, which got more than $8 million from EduCap in 2006, employed Maggie Daley as a “site consultant” who scouted locations for annual conferences of outstanding graduate students. Heard said Maggie Daley has not worked for the group since 2007.
Wayne Reynolds, who was Maggie Daley’s boss, is president and CEO of the Academy of Achievement. He also is on the board of directors of EduCap, which is run by his wife, Catherine Reynolds.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-daley-plane-05mar05,0,4109308.story
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