Chris Lange, FISM News
A conservative legal group has requested an audit of the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union and accused the organization of misreporting funds to the IRS that it used on political causes.
The Landmark Legal Foundation on Wednesday filed a complaint with the IRS alleging that the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), led by Randi Weingarten, failed to properly report its expenses related to political advocacy on its annual tax forms, according to the Washington Examiner, which broke the story.
AFT is a 501(c)5 tax-exempt organization, which means that it is required to submit IRS Form 990 each year. The form requires a “yes” or “no” answer to the question: “Did the organization engage in direct or indirect political campaign activities on behalf of or in opposition to candidates for public office?” The AFT checked the “no” box from 2016 to 2019, according to forms reviewed by the legal group.
The complaint specifically alleges that the AFT has reported on its four most recent tax returns that are currently accessible to the public “that it does not use general treasury revenue to fund political activities” and that “it made no transfers to any related political organization.”
The legal group, however, lists multiple actions by the AFT that appear to contradict the assertion.
According to the complaint, AFT President Randi Weingarten publicly campaigned for Democratic candidates during election cycles in 2016, 2017, and 2018, including Hillary Clinton in her 2016 bid for the White House.
The complaint also points to the “AFT Votes” bus tour promoting Democratic candidates in the 2020 election cycle, including Joe Biden, and further asserts that “Randi Weingarten devotes much of her social media presence to advocating for the election of identified candidates for public office and to publicize AFT’s political activities.”
And of course @JohnFetterman was marching with the Steelworkers! Let's sent him to the US Senate! #LaborDayParade pic.twitter.com/xB6kErgTin
— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇦🇺🇸💪🏿👩🎓 (@rweingarten) September 5, 2022
While Democrats pass laws to keep schools safe, MAGA Republicans are putting kids—and all of us—at GREATER risk of gun violence.
Why are they more worried about getting books out of schools than guns? (🧵) pic.twitter.com/9usyKdIAj2
— CAP Action (@CAPAction) September 7, 2022
“If AFT is using membership dues to finance political activities, the [IRS] should immediately assess applicable taxes and penalties,” the complaint said. “Moreover, agency fee payers and members should not have to finance political activities that they do not support.”
A total of 19 exhibits accompanying the complaint are viewable on Landmark Legal’s website. They include articles and social media posts featuring Weingarten appearing alongside Democratic politicians and materials from AFT’s website detailing political events as part of AFT’s 2020 bus tour, among other items.
“We did not find any evidence that the costs associated with the AFT’s massive political efforts to elect Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and numerous congressional candidates were reported to the IRS,” Landmark Legal said in a news release about the suit.
“It looks like AFT drove a bus through the guardrails set up by the IRS for tax-exempt organizations. The IRS must investigate to determine whether the AFT owes taxes or put its tax-exempt status in jeopardy,” the group said.
The Washington Examiner previously reported that ATF spent 27%, or $49 million, of the nearly $200 million in union dues it collected during the 2020-2021 fiscal year on “political donations that overwhelmingly favored Democratic political organizations and groups advocating overtly liberal causes.”
The news service also cited an Open Secrets report indicating that 98.94% of donations made by the AFT’s Committee on Political Education went to Democratic candidates during the 2020 election cycle.
The IRS’s Labor and Agricultural Organizations page states that “The exempt purposes of a labor or agricultural organization do not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.”
The page does, however, state that a labor or agricultural organization “may engage in some political activities … so long as that is not its primary activity. However, any expenditures it makes for political activities may be subject to tax under section 527(f).”