http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Sharptons-Money.html
Records show Sharpton owes overdue taxes, other penalties
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 10, 2008
Filed at 7:41 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Big cor****ations give him money. Presidential
candidates seek his endorsement. He has influential friends in
Congress and the governor's mansion. The Rev. Al Sharpton has emerged
over the past decade as perhaps the nation's most prominent civil
rights leader, a status that was demonstrated again this week when he
led protests against police brutality that briefly shut down six of
Manhattan's major bridges and tunnels.
But he still carries baggage from his early days as a fire-breathing
agitator: Government records obtained by The Associated Press indicate
that Sharpton and his business entities owe nearly $1.5 million in
overdue taxes and associated penalties.
Now the U.S. attorney is investigating his nonprofit group, a probe
that an undeterred Sharpton brushes off as the kind of annoyance that
civil rights figures have come to expect from the government.
''Whatever retaliation they do on me, we never stop,'' he told the AP.
''I think that that is why they try to intimidate us.''
Over the past year, Sharpton's lawyers and the staff of his nonprofit
group, the National Action Network, have been negotiating with the
federal government over the size of his debt, which they dispute. The
group has also been trying to pay off tens of thousands of dollars it
owes for failing to properly maintain workers compensation and
unemployment insurance.
Charlie King, the organization's interim executive director, said both
Sharpton and the group he leads were unprepared for their rise in
stature in recent years and had trouble dealing with big jumps in
donations and income.
''The infrastructure was trying to keep up with that pace, and it was
not a perfect fit,'' he told the AP on Friday. ''The National Action
Network may not have been perfect, but nothing was going on that was
untoward.''
He said the organization has new accountants and a new administrative
team, and the group recently finally filed long-overdue tax returns.
Sharpton's own debts include $365,558 owed in New York City income tax
and $931,397 in unpaid federal income tax, according to a lien filed
by the Internal Revenue Service last spring. His for-profit company,
Rev. Al Communications, owes the state another $175,962 in delinquent
taxes.
As for Sharpton's personal tax debt, King said Sharpton has started
paying it off but contends that faulty record-keeping by the National
Action Network led the government to overestimate his tax liability.
Tax headaches are nothing new for Sharpton. The 53-year-old minister
has been assailed over his career for running up big tax debts and
failing to abide by rules governing his charities and election
committees. He is perpetually being sued for failing to pay his bills.
In December, Sharpton revealed that as many as 10 of his associates
had received grand jury subpoenas. A person familiar with the
investigation told the AP that the FBI and IRS are probing whether
Sharpton or his organization committed tax crimes or violations
related to his 2004 presidential campaign, during which he was forced
to return public matching funds for breaking fundraising rules.
If any of this worries Sharpton, you'd never know it. He is pressing
ahead with his latest campaign -- an effort to persuade the Justice
Department to bring civil rights charges against New York City police
detectives who fired 50 shots and killed an unarmed groom as he left
his bachelor party.
Over the past few weeks, Sharpton has kept a high profile, promising
to lead weekly demonstrations until new charges are brought against
police detectives acquitted of manslaughter April 25 in the November
2006 death of Sean Bell.
''He is as focused as ever,'' said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, a Queens
Democrat who has also rallied for police reforms since the Bell case.
''He is probably more effective now than he was in the past, than he
has ever been.''
Sharpton was arrested and spent a few hours in jail Wednesday for
being among the marchers who blocked the Brooklyn Bridge to protest
the verdict.
On Thursday, Sharpton said he may soon add another cause -- the case
of three shooting suspects who appeared to have been beaten and kicked
by police during an arrest in Philadelphia.
Sharpton has been investigated before, and always walked away clean.
In 1990, he was acquitted of tax fraud and charges that he stole from
one of his charities. He followed that up with what was essentially
another victory in a tax case by pleading guilty to a misdemeanor
charge of failing to file a state return.
In the latest probe, the official overseeing the investigation is U.S.
Attorney Benton Campbell -- the same Brooklyn-based prosecutor whom
Sharpton is urging to file criminal charges in the Bell shooting.
Campbell's office has said it is reviewing the case but declined to
comment further.
Sharpton's reputation has undergone a remarkable renaissance since the
Tawana Brawley days in 1987, when he was accused of helping create a
hoax in which the 15-year-old girl claimed she had been kidnapped and
raped by a gang of whites that included a police officer and a
prosecutor. A grand jury concluded that Brawley made the story up.
Since the late 1990s, his civil rights group has grown from a small
outfit, with a few hundred thousand dollars in annual revenue, to an
organization that now routinely takes in $1 million to $2 million per
year, thanks partly to cor****ate sup****t.
Donors have included beer giant Anheuser-Busch, which gave more than
$100,000 last year, and Forest City Ratner, a real estate development
company that courted black leaders for sup****t of a plan to build an
NBA arena in Brooklyn. PepsiCo, for several years, gave Sharpton a
compensated position on one of its advisory boards.
The group also enjoys financial sup****t from the state's top
politicians.
New York Gov. David Paterson has transferred at least $28,000 from his
own re-election committee to the National Action Network since 2001.
Rep. Charles Rangel, a top Democrat in Congress, has been another
major backer, giving at least $83,000. New York Attorney General
Andrew Cuomo has given $10,000.
''Everybody who runs for office in the Democratic Party wants to meet
with him,'' said former Mayor Ed Koch, who once battled Sharpton but
now calls him a friend and a ''bona fide leader.''
Koch said Sharpton's past will always be an issue with some whites,
and he disagreed with the decision to engage in civil disobedience
over the Bell case. But the former mayor believes the respect Sharpton
enjoys among blacks is well earned.
''He is willing to go to jail for them,'' Koch said. ''And he is there
when they need him.''
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