Posted on 07/29/2009 4:01:21 PM PDT by tired&retired
Henry Louis Gates’ Foundation to Revise Tax Return Cambridge, Mass. (July 28, 2009)
By WebCPA Staff
A nonprofit foundation run by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is filing an amended 2007 tax return after it was found to have mischaracterized $11,000 in payments to officials as research grants.
Gates founded the Inkwell Foundation four years ago to conduct research and education about African and African-American history and culture. The foundation apparently reported a $10,000 grant to Joanne Kendall, the foundation’s treasurer, who is also Gates’ assistant at Harvard. In addition, the foundation made a $1,000 payment to secretary Abby Wolf that was mistakenly listed as research.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates told public interest journalism site ProPublica that the research grants were mischaracterized on the foundation’s Form 990. “It should have been listed as compensation,” he said.
Advertisement Gates also told the Boston Globe that it was simply an error. “It’s a very minor issue, just a simple mistake from the account,’’ he said. “It will all be rectified, and all is well.’’
The foundation’s accountant admitted to ProPublica that he didn’t understand why the payments were misclassified, but that he planned to file an amended return in a week or so.
Gates was arrested on July 16 by Cambridge, Mass., police for disorderly conduct after an eyewitness reported a possible break-in at his home. The professor had been returning home after a trip abroad, and he and his driver found the front door to be jammed, so he needed to use the back door instead. The arrest provoked accusations of racial profiling, and the controversy ramped up after President Obama criticized the police for acting “stupidly” at a news conference last week. Charges against Gates were quickly dismissed, and Obama has invited Gates and the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, to the White House for a beer to defuse the controversy.
LOL. The nouveau form...
Cooking the books to make it look like they are actually doing something.
The $11,000 was about 40% of their total expenditures: "the [2007 return] declares the charity received $205,400 in direct support, but declares only $27,600 in total expenditures for program services."
There's a lot more about Gates' "charitable" and business enterprises at the link.
The tax return appears to be a sham as the source of the revenue(donations) section is not completed. The payments do not qualify for the described purpose of the organization, and a large portion of the program expenditures were not (non-profit) recipients.
This private foundation would lose its non-profit status under even the most lienient analysis of the organization.
Here is the link to the return. Better download it before it disappears. The 1023 application should also be available if you want to see it.
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2007/020/756/2007-020756843-047b169d-9.pdf
Contact Information:
INKWELL FOUNDATION INC
Physical Address:17 Ware St
% Henry Louis Gates Jr
Cambridge, MA 02138
This would be a guaranteed audit if you turned him in as the annual tax return is clearly incomplete and incorrect.
Dime to a dollar that he claimed the charitable contribution on his own return and that the art work listed as “owned” by the foundation is hanging at his house. This alone is grounds for total disqualification.
Anything like "calibrating your words"?
My intuition as a fraud investigator and a CPA tells me that if one were to cross reference the payouts listed to individuals that they just might cross reference to presidential political contributions per the national political contributions database. In short... it may have been an Obummer fundraising org.
Well, that pattern seems to fit. You may just be right, but then, the entire (and historic) $700+M campaign war chest was never audited, not will it ever be, apparently.
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