As our daily readers know, a big part of what we do is to expose the supposedly charitable Christian and Jewish groups which say they are driven to care for the “least of these among us” purely because it is a Godly thing to do. Then we find out they are doing their ‘charitable work’ by ripping off local, state and federal taxpayers. Some of their ‘leaders’ are being paid handsomely (by you) to do it.
Adding insult to injury, they are bringing Muslim refugees to your towns and cities with your money.
So, this morning when I saw this news story from Virginia about a “Christian charity” called World Help, I said, wow!, this Christian charity is actually talking about saving Iraqi Christians by making dangerous trips to Iraq and helping them there. I can’t see any mention of bringing more refugees to America. Good!
Then I had a look at a recent IRS Form 990.
World Help (that year) was a $25 million a year operation. Yes, it has some big salaries (not as big as some we have reported), but much to my surprise $8.7 million came to them in the form of “government grants.” What is up with that? For what? I don’t know and don’t have the time to research it. All I know is there needs to be book (is there one?) that describes the “religious charity” racket!
It gets a little worse. To acquire those government grants they hired an outfit called CMF Unlimited from Florida. On their 2012 Form 990, WH reported paying them $131,250 to acquire taxpayer-funded grants.
Then at some point after filing that return…..
CMF Unlimited was blamed by World Help in 2012 for submitting fraudulent records that helped the charity get on Forbes list of top 100 charities (Forbes announced the “error.”)
Apparently it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there in the Christian charity business.
From Forbes:
Calling itself a victim of “fraudulent documents,” World Help said today that the actual value of donated medical goods it received during 2011 was less than half the $227 million listed in its filing with the Internal Revenue Service. The large Forest, Va.-based Christian international-aid charity said it would soon file an amended tax return listing only about $100 million in gifts. That means that just a few months ago World Help filed a tax return claiming nearly twice the donations of goods for 2011 than it actually received.
“We are self-reporting this,” World Help president and CEO Vernon Brewer told Forbes. “It’s the right thing to do.” Without that added sum, World Help would not have made the latest Forbes roster of the country’s largest charities. “I feel so bad you put us on your list,” he said.
Brewer said a paid consultant World Help hired to seek gift-in-kind contributions, as donated goods are called, obtained an allotment of medical supplies from Direct Relief International, a Goleta, Calif. charity also on the Forbes list. In shipping paperwork and on its own tax return, Direct Relief had valued the goods at $3.3 million. Brewer said his charity received from the consultant the same Direct Relief shipping paperwork–except that, according to World Help’s 2011 tax return, it valued the goods at $100 million–a 3,o00% markup. “The values had been whited out and new numbers put in,” Brewer said. “We got fraudulent documents. A couple of zeros were added.”
World Help’s publicly filed tax return identified the consultant as CMF Unlimited Inc., based in the Fort Lauderdale area. Florida corporate records say its owner is Clifford M. Feldman. Brewer said Feldman has not returned any of his recent phone calls seeking an explanation. Voicemail messages seeking comment that Forbes left Wednesday for Feldman also were not returned.
In California, Direct Relief CEO Thomas Tighe said Wednesday he was “deeply concerned” when he learned that his charity’s modest $3.3 million donation had morphed into a reported $100 million donation still bearing his organization’s name on the paperwork. Of World Help, he said, “There was clearly a mistake that was made on their part.”
Someone needs to write a book (maybe there is one) on The Religious Refugee Charity Racket in America. Hey! There is a title right there!