Off-Topic: Trump used charity funds to pay off legal problems https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-used-258000-from-his-charity-to-settle-legal-problems/2016/09/20/adc88f9c-7d11-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html
In another case, court papers say one of Trump's golf courses in New York agreed to settle a lawsuit by making a donation to the plaintiff's chosen charity. A $158,000 donation was made by the Trump Foundation, according to tax records. The other expenditures involved smaller amounts. In 2013, Trump used $5,000 from the foundation to buy advertisements touting his chain of hotels in programs for three events organized by a D.C. preservation group. And in 2014, Trump spent $10,000 of the foundation's money for a portrait of himself bought at a charity fundraiser. Or, rather, another portrait of himself. Several years earlier, Trump had used $20,000 from the Trump Foundation to buy a different, six foot-tall portrait. If the Internal Revenue Service were to find that Trump violated self-dealing rules, the agency could require him to pay penalty taxes or to reimburse the foundation for all the money it spent on his behalf. Trump is also facing scrutiny from the office of the New York attorney general, which is examining whether the foundation broke state charity laws. More broadly, these cases also provide new evidence that Trump ran his charity in a way that may have violated U.S. tax law and gone against the moral conventions of philanthropy. "I represent 700 nonprofits a year, and I've never encountered anything so brazen," said Jeffrey Tenenbaum, who advises charities at the Venable law firm in Washington. After The Post described the details of these Trump Foundation gifts, Tenenbaum described them as "really shocking." "If he's using other people's money -- run through his foundation -- to satisfy his personal obligations, then that's about as blatant an example of self-dealing [as] I've seen in a while," Tenenbaum said. - - - --Lauren-- Care About Science and Tech? Our Job One: STOP TRUMP: https://vortex.com/stop-trump - - - Lauren Weinstein (lau...@vortex.com): https://www.vortex.com/lauren Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: https://www.pfir.org/pfir-info Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Google+: https://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone. - - - The correct term is "Internet" NOT "internet" -- please don't fall into the trap of using the latter. It's just plain wrong! _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list https://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad