John,
Non-profit organizations can’t direct their funds to personally benefit insiders, with lavish perks or excessive compensation. This prohibition on private benefit to insiders is absolute--and the NRA appears to have violated it with excessive payments to benefit its top executive, Wayne LaPierre.
Today, CREW filed an IRS complaint against the NRA for this apparent violation of their tax-exempt status.
Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s top executive, was paid more than $2 million in 2018. That made him the highest paid executive of a 501(c)(4) organization in the country.
Not only is LaPierre paid extravagantly now, but he has very generous retirement benefits and a reported agreement for guaranteed post-employment consulting services that start at his current base salary. That is not normal. LaPierre also spent lavishly, at the NRA’s expense, on clothes, travel, and makeup services for his wife through the NRA’s advertising agency.
All of this seems to add up to a scam: LaPierre has been siphoning off the NRA’s funds for his own purposes, which jeopardizes the organization’s tax-exempt status. The IRS must investigate.
CREW works to uncover corruption and wrongdoing wherever we find it. That means not just the government and Congress, but also those who seek to influence the government, like the NRA. Our tax laws should not be allowed to be abused in order to benefit political insiders, and we’ll fight for accountability for as long as it takes.
If CREW’s work uncovering corruption and challenging abuses of power matters to you, please consider donating to support our work today.
We couldn’t do this work without you.
Thank you,
Noah Bookbinder
Executive Director, CREW
