Embattled Trump Inaugural Committee Failed To Disclose Key Finances To IRS

By Josh Kovensky
January 22, 2019 7:28 am

President Trump’s inaugural committee failed to disclose to the IRS how much money it received in ticket revenue, TPM has found after reviewing the group’s tax filings, a failure that tax experts find perplexing.

The Trump inaugural committee’s failure to identify the revenue it generated from the sale of tickets and other perks broke with the practice of previous inaugural committees. In doing so, the tax return that the committee filed with the IRS obscured a key metric of how it raised its record $106.7 million.

On their tax returns, other recent inaugural committees broke out sales revenue separately from contributions from donors. Sales of tickets to events, which often include key officials from the incoming administration, and of merchandise or other items of value were typically listed on the inaugural committee’s tax return where it asks for “program service revenue.”

The Trump inaugural committee did not report any “program service revenue” on its tax return, effectively concealing the amount of cash generated from tickets and anything else that it sold.

“I can’t think of a legitimate reason why one would not do that,” Marcus Owens, an attorney at Loeb & Loeb who served as director of the IRS’s exempt organizations division for 10 years, told TPM. “Confusion by the accountant perhaps. Obviously, the form calls for it, so the form is not complete and accurate if doesn’t do that.”

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