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As far as I can see, yes. That link from Proud Boy looks legit, and if not, here's the Chronicle saying the same thing.
Hold off on that, it turns out they've filed their 2020 form with California and that's available. It could be they haven't filed 2021 anywhere yet, although the clock is ticking. Their Federal EIN is 46-1973968, and you can search California's records here.
| Status of Filing: | Accepted |
| Accounting Period Begin Date: | 1/1/2019 |
| Accounting Period End Date: | 12/31/2019 |
| Filing Received Date: | 11/23/2020 |
| Status of Filing: | E-Accepted |
| Accounting Period Begin Date: | 1/1/2020 |
| Accounting Period End Date: | 12/31/2020 |
| Filing Received Date: | 11/12/2021 |
990's are due on the 15th day after the fifth month of the nonprofit's fiscal year end. Most nonprofits get six month extensions from the IRS, which means nonprofits with 12/31 fiscal year ends usually file them in mid-November of the following calendar year. Don't expect any smoking guns in the 990. They're informational returns in nature so the IRS doesn't give a crap about them unless nonprofits don't file them on time because the IRS can then assess decent-sized penalties. Nonprofits can easily bury embarrassing info in them. (That CPA who prepares more than a dozen 990's per year)
According to the SFWA's website, the loans are only for members who have publishing-related disputes. That's why I think SFWA's funding of the lawsuit falls into the other category. SFWA obviously wouldn't foot the bill for Quasi's legal fees - hence the lien on the hovel. If the funding fell into that other category, Pat is definitely on the hook for Quasi's legal fees and whatever amount that SFWA didn't pay for Pat's attorneys.
I still don't see how funding a defamation suit for one of their file-trading partners falls into "issues which are of importance to SFWA’s members and the business of writing". It's plainly not, and I don't believe a charity can just fork out $120k+ of money to an unrelated cause without consequence. Otherwise I'd set up a charity to pay my mortgage and living expenses, and route all my income through it. Call it the "Science Fiction And Fantasy Writers of America", because I'm inclusive like that.
There's going to be a sudden $120k expense that they haven't had in previous years, and I've seen entries in previous SFWA 990s listing what those expenses were for (cons, etc.) That's nearly as much as they pulled in via membership dues in 2019.
Where would whoever you're talking about advise us to look? They have a $120k hole in their books, they need to account for it, and they can't mislabel it as "Adult Prostitutes" etc.
I'm not saying it's right, but keep in mind that the IRS allowed the Church of Scientology to become a nonprofit so the bar is pretty low for becoming a nonprofit in the U.S.. There are plenty of shady nonprofits out there and they can spend money on just about anything that's somewhat related to their mission statements. They only get attention from the IRS if they spend a lot of money on lobbying efforts or if they pay the CEO's huge salaries.
I'm that CPA who prepares more than a dozen 990's per year and I'll definitely go over SFWA's 2021 990 with a fine tooth comb after it's uploaded to guidestar.org. If it was a loan, it should show up on the balance sheet as a note receivable and it will stick out like a sore thumb. If it wasn't a loan or if the loan was forgiven, it should show up on the statement of functional expenses as assistance to domestic individuals and flow to Schedule I of the 990 as a legal or loan forgiveness expense. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if SFWA tries to bury the expense since they know we're going to be looking at the 990 and they really don't want us to know beyond a shadow of a doubt SFWA funded Pat's lawsuit that was intended to suppress our free speech. The public accounting firm that prepares SFWA's 990 only has to deem whether the info provided by SFWA for the 990 is reasonable and SFWA doesn't get an annual external audit so it's not like SFWA's 990's are based on audited numbers that are presented fairly in all material respects.
Won’t you get more time for this?
Very good point. We know he lies and exaggerates about everything, so we shouldn't just take that number at face value.
Quasi had one lawyer, in one state, fighting two subpoenas. Pat had three lawyers - Brinton's boutique firm, which aren't cheap; Nicole in Wisconsin and The Blobfish in California. Once you start adding all those together, and the fucking dumbass back-and-forth they did arguing with people, and them taking on Kiwifarms, I can see how that might ratchet up to triple the costs Quasi had; particularly since Pat would want white-glove Rolls Royce service and SFWA were footing the bill. He had, what, five lengthy calls to Josiah? Imagine how much billable contact and hand-holding he racked up with Brinton.
$4k x 12 months is $48k; $6k is $72k. Throw in a couple of extra law firms, and the fact that he was fighting on multiple fronts, and I don't think $100k's out of the question
Having read a lot on Scientology over the years, that took a 30-year fight with members launching lawsuits against individual IRS employees - not the IRS, the guys that worked there - in every state of the Union. Their exact deal with the US government is still sealed by the courts. I don't think they're a good comparison.
Thank you, that'd be great.
Is there any way to trigger such an audit? And have you ever seen a charity dump 20% of its revenue into a gift for one of its members before, and get away with it? It amounts to 2/3rds of their income from membership dues, which seems a lot.
They're not a good comparison to SFWA, but it just goes to show how lenient the U.S. is compared to other western countries when it comes to nonprofits. Less than twenty years after Operation Snow White was uncovered by the FBI, the Church of Scientology was able to get nonprofit status. There are plenty of nonprofits like the Clinton Foundation that spend only twenty percent of their contribution revenue on the reason why they're a nonprofit and the rest goes to management and general expenses. That alone should make a lot of nonprofits lose their tax-exempt status.
Nonprofits get annual external audits from CPA firms for one of three reasons:
It adds up quick when you're paying for lawyers, paralegals, document production, etc., especially when you start spanning multiple states and law offices.
I think this is why they pushed the goodreads angle. The NYT article was only written due to SFWA campaigning for it. They'll say that trolls writing bad reviews on goodreads was preventing authors from getting published.
Besides subpoenaing Cloudflare, Pat's lawyers also subpoenaed encyclopedia dramatica, kiwifarms and google as well.
Wait - wah' happen? I think I missed that.