Lead Stories

The former board president of a nonprofit mental health clinic in Philadelphia has been ordered by a federal District Court to forfeit $2,041,750 in funds she improperly acquired from the Clinic for her personal benefit.  She had previously been convicted on 53 counts of fraud, theft and false statements on tax returns for her various schemes.

Renee Tartaglione became the president of the Juniata Community Mental Health Clinic and engineered an elaborate scheme to siphon funds from the agency, which is spelled out in detail in the Court’s opinion.

The Appalachian Bible College in West Virginia has won an unopposed judgment in its suit to enforce a $400,000 pledge from a corporate donor. The donor had said it was financially unable to meet the commitment.

A new academic study has concluded that 7.1% of all U.S. corporate charitable giving, about $1.3 billion annually, is politically motivated and correlated with the relevance of the Congressional representative of the charity’s district to the business interests of the corporation.  The authors conclude that this charitable giving may be a form of political influence that goes mostly undetected by voters and shareholders, and is directly subsidized by taxpayers.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the right of the New York Attorney General to require organizations seeking to solicit contributions within the state to file a list of names of significant donors in order to register.  It has rejected constitutional claims by a related 501(c)(3) charitable organization and 501(c)(4) social welfare organization that attempted to raise arguments that had prevailed in similar litigation in California.  (See Nonprofit Issues^®, 12/16.

Is a personal trust entitled to a full fair market value deduction for a gift of real estate just like an individual or corporate taxpayer?  No, says the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in what appears to be a case of first impression in the courts.  It has reversed a District Court opinion and held that the deduction is limited to the adjusted tax basis of the property under the special provisions of section 642(a)(1) of the Tax Code.

One politically conservative nonprofit organization can bar another from the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (“CPAC”) without violating antitrust laws, a federal District Court has ruled, even if the barred organization is unable to increase its prestige, goodwill, and obtain donations.  The federal District Court in Florida has held that the action is not a restraint on “trade or commerce” governed by the Sherman Act.