Patrisse Cullors, the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement has some thoughts about IRS Form 990, which her . . . er, nonprofit is required to file, and then make publicly available upon request, every year:
Cullors: "This doesn't seem safe for us, this 990 structure — this nonprofit system structure. This is, like, deeply unsafe. This is being literally weaponized against us, against the people we work with." pic.twitter.com/xQnCY4S2pw
— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) April 13, 2022
Cullors’s problem here is that she doesn’t go far enough. I don’t know if she knows this, but every year, with no regard whatsoever for my safety, the IRS weaponizes a form against me, and the people I work with, too. It’s called Form 1040, and I, too, am like, ugh, it’s triggering. Per the terms of Form 1040, I am obliged to tell the federal government about all the money I earned during the last year, and then — and this is the truly weaponized, unsafe part — I am obliged to write a check for a percentage of it. I don’t do this, men with guns will come and punish me.
Obviously, Form 990 is also weaponized and triggering and unsafe and all that, and yet I can’t help but suspect that, because Form 990 is literally the means by which organizations such as Cullors’s avoid paying taxes — an approach that has helped Cullors accrue a rather nice property portfolio, among other things — it is perhaps a touch less weaponized and triggering and unsafe than the process that everyone who actually works for a living is forced to use.