Al Sharpton Has a Big Tax Problem

Stop what you’re doing right now and read this New York Times piece on Al Sharpton’s massive tax problems. Here’s a sample.

Mr. Sharpton has regularly sidestepped the sorts of obligations most people see as inevitable, like taxes, rent and other bills. Records reviewed by The New York Times show more than $4.5 million in current state and federal tax liens against him and his for-profit businesses.

And though he said in recent interviews that he was paying both down, his balance with the state, at least, has actually grown in recent years. His National Action Network appears to have been sustained for years by not paying federal payroll taxes on its employees.

With the tax liability outstanding, Mr. Sharpton traveled first class and collected a sizable salary, the kind of practice by nonprofit groups that the United States Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration recently characterized as “abusive,” or “potentially criminal” if the failure to turn over or collect taxes is willful.

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In 2009, when the group still owed $1.1 million in overdue payroll taxes, Mr. Sharpton began collecting a salary of $250,000 from National Action Network. The recent Treasury report that called that sort of practice abusive also said only 1,200 organizations in the nation owed more than $100,000 in unpaid payroll taxes, which would put Mr. Sharpton’s group among the most delinquent nonprofit organizations in the nation.

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Today, Mr. Sharpton still faces personal federal tax liens of more than $3 million, and state tax liens of $777,657, according to records. Raw Talent and Revals Communications owe another $717,329 on state and federal tax liens.

Read the whole thing.

The Times has surveyed Sharpton’s records, and found that the formerly large alleged reverend is living large while failing to pay the little people — the travel agencies, the hotels, the landlords, the government that he is always trying to grow. He has been sued for failing to pay rent. Basically, he’s running a racket disguised first as churches and then as his public advocacy group, National Action Network, a group that is national and capable of action in name only. The Times says that Al doesn’t pay his bills, and that his liabilities have grown in recent years despite his claims that he is paying his debts down.

Sharpton’s tax and bills issues presents a problem for cable bottom feeder MSNBC. They can’t fire him, or he’ll turn around and accuse them of racism — that’s his standard shakedown schtick. On that network, literally every problem in the universe comes down to too little government or too much racism, or both. Sharpton could become the subject of unflattering news reporting even as he opines about public affairs on his show every weekday.

Sharpton and his network can hardly claim racism, as it’s the Obama government to which he owes money now, along with New York’s liberal government and various private entities to whom Sharpton reportedly owes millions. They can’t blame Fox or conservatives for the New York Times writing up a report on him. Sharpton himself is hardly in a strong position to continue his advocacy for big government, when he refuses to pay his own share toward that government. What’s a knee-jerk leftist cable network to do?

Ignore it all, of course, and so far that’s exactly what MSNBC is doing. Just as they and the rest of the media ignore Sharpton’s bloody and hoax-powered past.