IRS revokes CAIR’s tax-exempt status

The IRS has revoked the tax-exempt status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  CAIR hasn’t filed a single 990, a fairly simple tax form required for most nonprofit organizations to submit, in over three years!  (See our related coverage here from last year.)  This is in line with a pattern of slipshod accounting, misappropriation, unknown overheads, missing money, mysterious spending, and unacceptable financial controls by Islamic entities throughout the world.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism hints that CAIR did not file the required paperwork because it would reveal their reliance on foreign funding sources.  That is plausible because, if you were the attorney for CAIR, you too would probably make the decision that it’s better to lose your tax-exempt status than it would be to be prosecuted in federal court for violating FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act.  (CAIR’s FARA problem is documented here, which was exacerbated by CAIR’s servile request to Libyan looney-toon Muamar Qaddafi.)  Violations of FARA carry up to a five year prison sentence.

But as a co-conspirator with the Holy Land Foundation in its scheme to fund Hamas, CAIR could be concealing far worse truths than its Gulf revenue stream.  Missing 990s not only means that we don’t know CAIR’s funding sources, but we don’t know much about their expenditures either.  CAIR’s historic involvement in terror finance schemes is chilling.

From the Politico (which notes that CAIR lied to their own reporter for this story) on June 23:

CAIR loses nonprofit status

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has lost its nonprofit status, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

The civil rights group, long accused of ties to radical Islam, is on a list of 275,000 organizations who have not filed the requisite paperwork with the IRS to maintain nonprofit status. Tax law requires annual disclosure of assets, expenditures and salaries for 501(c) nonprofits. Both CAIR and sister organization CAIR Foundation have lost their status.

A CAIR attorney initially told POLITICO that its appearance on the IRS list referred to a defunct arm of the nonprofit, and that CAIR and CAIR foundation were unaffected — a claim that a review of the IRS documents did not support. CAIR then told POLITICO the IRS was to blame, citing a number of other errors that have occurred on the IRS list. However, CAIR could not produce their IRS disclosure forms for 2007 through 2010 — which are required to be open for public inspection.

“We are looking into all of these issues and are working with the IRS to clear things up,” CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told POLITICO. “CAIR was clearly not targeted or singled in any way by the IRS.”

CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a landmark terrorism financing trial in Texas. Some Islamic charities facing federal investigations have been advised by attorneys not to file IRS paperwork for legal reasons, but there is no evidence that CAIR is currently the target of a federal probe.

Incidentally, the move helps IRS catch up with its Canadian counterpart, Canada Revenue Agency, which has so far been more agressive on revoking the tax-exempt status of nefarious Islamic charities.