-By Warner Todd Huston
The Washington Times is reporting that the Landmark Legal Foundation is requesting that the Internal Revenue Service review all the millions being spent by Big Labor on Democrat political campaigns during the 2010 midterm elections.
As we discussed earlier this week, Big Labor is spending at least $100 million on the upcoming elections — actually even more because we have no numbers reported by the AFL-CIO. Landmark is worried that this giant blanket of money could possibly raise questions of legality.
In the request, Mark Levin, President of Landmark Legal Foundation, said, “Landmark requests that the IRS begin immediately a thorough examination of these labor unions’ political activities and that the IRS commence without delay the collection of all relevant information and data.”
He went on…
“It is crucial that the IRS get its hands around this to ensure these groups are not commingling funds,” Mr. Levin said in an interview. “The public-sector unions are the most powerful entities in the nation.”
He pointed out in his letter that labor organizations generally are exempt from paying income taxes to the federal government except when they use their funds for political activity.
“To illustrate, when a labor organization receives a dollar in dues from one of its members and places that dollar in its general treasury, then it does not owe the IRS any tax,” he wrote. “However, if the labor organization then takes the dollar and uses it for political activity, then that dollar becomes taxable income, and the expenditure must be reported.”
Mr. Levin pointed out that the unions have separate funds for their political activities as required by law.
“However, as Landmark has demonstrated through various complaints in recent years, the extent to which these organizations appear to be blurring the line between legitimately exempt activity and taxable political activities is growing more and more troublesome,” he wrote.
Naturally all the unions are feigning “great concern” over the rules claiming that they are making sure to stay within the law.
Sadly, with the union bought president and his administration fairly at midterm, expecting this president and his government to monitor unions for illegality is asking the fox to watch the hen house.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 200 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDailyReview.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
Huston has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Huston’s work has appeared on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neil Bortz, and Michael Savage. He has appeared on the G. Gordon Liddy show, dozens of local shows from coast to coast, and many blogtalk radio shows.
Mr. Huston has appeared on local TV news to discuss his writing, has been a guest of CNN’s blogger lunch, and has appeared on Breitbart TV’s B-Team show.
Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com and has a blog on the Tribune-Owned http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/publius-forum/ChicagoNow.com website. He is a well known writer on Illinois politics.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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