IRS Targets High Dollar Foundations

Good Foundations Thrive; Bad Foundations Challenged

 

By James P. Tucker Jr.

 

Jessica Mathews, a regular at secret Bilderberg meetings in recent years, heads the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her mission is to help implement the program dictated to her at these Bilderberg meetings.

She is paid $280,000 a year with an additional $42,000 in “benefits.” The foundation’s assets are $232.6 million. Since donations to the Carnegie Endowment are tax-free, American taxpayers subsidize the foundation by making up for the taxes not paid.

But the gravy train for Mathews and many others may be coming to a halt. The Internal Revenue Service announced Aug. 9 that it would scrutinize 2000 foundations and charities.

“We are concerned that some charities and foundations are abusing their tax-exempt status by paying exorbitant compensation to their officers and others,” explained IRS Commissioner Mark Everson.

In the foundations league, Mathews is modestly paid and has limited assets.

Susan B. Berresford, president of the Ford Foundation, struggles along on $661,713 a year, plus $169,477 in benefits and expenses of $7,491, for a total of $828,681.

The original Henry Ford intended his foundation to serve America’s best interests. For decades now, it has funded a mishmash of groups, some with anti-American views. Through tax-free donations, you are, however reluctantly, subsidizing the foundation.

The Rockefeller Foundation of New York pays its treasurer, Donna Dean, $677,597 plus benefits of $51,045, for a total of $728,642. This generation’s family patriarch, David Rockefeller, is a charter member of Bilderberg and founder of its brother group, the Trilateral Commission. Rockefeller has also been involved in a number of organizations that have helped large American companies eliminate jobs domestically and move them overseas.

Other foundation fatcats include Kellogg’s William C. Richardson, $530,250 plus $189,585 in benefits; Knight’s Hodding Carter III, $430,536 plus $72,641; Kresge’s John Marshall, $423,333; Lilly Endowment’s Thomas M. Lofton, $822,000 plus $390,132; Lumina Foundation for Education’s Peter C. Morrow, $474,203 plus $1,450,943; MacArthur’s Jonathon Fanton, $458,803 plus $59,377; Mellon’s William Bowen, $489,000 plus $138,045; Sloan’s Ralph Gomory, $552,500 plus $61,288; Starr’s Florence Davis, $575,000 plus $16,284; Robert Wood Johnson’s Steven Schroeder, $536,876 plus $60,182 and Hewlett’s Paul Brest, $454,850.

Dorothy S. Ridings, president of the Council on Foundations, survives on $329,446 in compensation and $65,480 in benefits and expenses. Vance T. Peterson, president of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, limps along on a $300,000 salary.

Some people have the imagination to fund a foundation and get most of the money back. The Bielfeldt Foundation has doled out $25 million to charity over 17 years. But it has paid $21 million to its founder, Gary Bielfeldt, his son and the family money management businesses for investment advice, the Peoria, Ill., Journal Star reports.

Because of their tax-exempt status, these foundations’ projects and lavish salaries are subsidized by American taxpayers who must make up billions of dollars in lost revenues.