Without additional information, it might appear that America First Policies failed to report what that $4.3 million was actually spent on to the IRS or failed to report that spending to the FEC entirely.ĭespite the potential implications of a group misreporting political spending to the IRS or FEC, any substantial consequences are unlikely. State-level campaign finance disclosures only show America First Policies’ $115,000 in-kind payment to its affiliated super PAC covering shared costs like payroll and office space, with no additional reported outside spending, according to National Institute on Money in Politics data. Unlike many other politically active nonprofits that describe vague or varnished versions of their political activities to the IRS, the only activities America First Policies lists that the $4.3 million it spent on “political campaign activities” went to are “independent expenditures and advertising costs to support (or oppose) political candidates who agreed (or disagreed) with the organization’s policy initiatives” - despite the group only reporting $1.97 million in independent expenditures to the FEC for that period. Due to lack of communication between the IRS and FEC, this kind of discrepancy is often left undiscovered.Īmerica First Policies, however, describes what the group’s political campaign activities entailed in detail. The broader coverage of the IRS definition of political campaign activities combined with groups’ equivocal descriptions of those activities often makes it difficult to compare the amounts reported in tax returns to what was reported to the FEC. It also includes a contract, promise, or agreement to make an expenditure, whether or not legally enforceable.” An expenditure includes a payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit, or gift of money, or anything of value. The IRS’ most recent Form 990 instructions note that “any expenditures made for political campaign activities are political expenditures. While discrepancies in political expenditures reported to the IRS and FEC by politically active nonprofits are not uncommon - nor necessarily indicative of a false statement to either federal agency - dark money groups often try to mitigate their spending in tax returns’ descriptions of their political activities. But the “political campaign activities” spending it reported to the IRS for the same period was around twice that amount - $4.3 million - and its total spending reported for that period was even more. Senate.īrnovich writes: Our office found election vulnerabilities that must be fixedįrom his endless lawsuits against the Biden administration, guaranteed to land him a friendly interview on Fox, to his interim report on the elections – a report in which he breathlessly noted that his Election Integrity Unit found “serious vulnerabilities” in Arizona’s election system and “uncovered instances of election fraud.The first annual tax return filed by pro-Trump “dark money” group America First Policies and reviewed by the Center for Responsive Politics reveals that the 501(c)(4) nonprofit spent even more on political activities than previously reported in campaign finance disclosures.Īs a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit, is not allowed to have politics as its primary purpose despite spending millions on politicking.ĭisparities between the new tax documents submitted to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) under the penalty of perjury and earlier disclosures to Federal Election Commission (FEC) indicate that millions of dollars in political spending may have been left undisclosed for many months.Īmerica First Policies told the FEC that it spent $1.97 million in independent expenditures and $245,404 on electioneering communications in its first year of operation. It’s also worth pointing out that Brnovich, for a year, has been shamelessly using his office as a cheap campaign tool in his quest to snag a seat in the U.S. It’s worth pointing out that Trump endorsed Brnovich’s opponent, Blake Masters, in June. This, if they did not give money to Brnovich. The email threatened potential dupes … oops, I mean, potential donors … with losing “ny chance of continuing to receive our Trump polls, Trump rally alerts, and 2024 Endorsement opportunities”. In their June cease-and-desist letter, Trump’s lawyers pointed to a recent email with subject line “ACCOUNT TERMINATION NOTICE”, according to the Post. Brnovich apparently has also been been sending out e-mails attaching himself to Trump.
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