CREW files IRS complaint on Freedom Frontier missing tax return

Based on the publicly available information, Freedom Frontier apparently failed to file its 2016 tax return on time and is at least 127 days late in filing.

Freedom Frontier is a nonprofit corporation established in Texas in 2011 and granted tax-exempt status the same year.

As a section 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization, APC is required to file annual Form 990 tax returns within four and a half months after the end of the organization’s fiscal year. See Treasury Reg 1-6033-2(e). For organizations like Freedom Frontier that use a calendar year cycle, the annual Form 990 is due on May 15 of the following year. The IRS automatically grants one three-month extension, and tax-exempt organizations may request – and are routinely granted – a second three-month extension for reasonable cause.

Freedom Frontier’s 2016 Form 990 initially was due May 15, 2017. If the organization received both of the allowable three-month extensions, Freedom Frontier’s 2016 Form 990 due date was November 15, 2017.

To date, the IRS does not appear to have received APC’s 2015 Form 990 tax return. Public information about tax-exempt organizations is available in the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Business Master File Extract (“EO BMF”), which “includes cumulative information on exempt organizations” with data that is “extracted monthly,” is “available by state and region,” and represents “the most recent information the IRS has for these organizations.” The EO BMF was updated most recently on March 12, 2018.

This is not the first time Freedom Frontier has had issues filing its tax return. In 2016, Freedom Frontier initially filed a Form 990-N for its 2015 tax year, telling the IRS it raised no more than $50,000. After CREW publicly reported that Freedom Frontier’s filing of Form 990-N was inconsistent with the fact that the organization had contributed $250,000 to an independent expenditure-only committee in 2015, Freedom Frontier filed an amended 2015 tax return in April 2017, disclosing that the organization actually had raised $1,185,000 in 2015 and spent $873,707.

CREW has already made multiple attempts to obtain Freedom Frontier’s 2016 Form 990. However, CREW has not received the 990 from the IRS or Freedom Frontier.

Therefore, the IRS should investigate Freedom Frontier and, should it find that Freedom Frontier has violated its obligations under the Code, take appropriate action.