The Intimidation Game Read Online Free Page A

meetings ran $900. Radio advertising cost about $1,000 for eight months of weekly ads. Their candlelit 9/11 memorial—their most expensive event ever—ran about $850. The rest is tiny, sporadic: $130 for a website domain; a one-day rental van to deliver the food donations; a table hire for an event. Some of the outgoing checks are token but grateful recognition of volunteer time. No one in SFVP draws a salary, though Kenney insists on paying Cronn a tiny stipend for serving as webmaster and to reimburse him for expenses. In response to a 2011 e-mail from Cronn about a few things he’d bought to create their first newsletter, Kenney replied, “I’ll send you a check for $150 to cover your expenses and an enormously ridiculous ‘bonus’ of $50 to purchase aspirin, butt cushions and Pepto-Bismol.”
    She’s (unsurprisingly) scrupulous about documenting every dollar in and out. ( Do I sound OCD? Really, I’m not OCD! Well…maybe I’m a little OCD. ) Kenney estimates that the group’s annual income averages about $3,300. And she acknowledges that over its five years she’s kicked in about $14,000 of her own money—money she doesn’t have to spare. By comparison, the largest liberal 501(c)(4), the League of Conservation Voters, spent $9.6 million on the 2012 election alone.
    SFVP was, in short, poorer than a Revolutionary-era church mouse. Asking the IRS to officially recognize that fact hardly seemed worth the effort. Then again, Kenney really wanted to inspire her neighbors to vote. And she figured on a further upside or two. Scoring IRS tax-exempt status would give SFVP some official ownership over its name. Owning a 501(c)(4) badge also tended to make people a little more comfortable about donating.
    Kenney knew nothing about the IRS application process, so she fired up her computer. The process was no small thing. She needed official officers—a secretary, a treasurer—so she recruited some SFVP regulars. And she needed articles of incorporation, so she wrote them. They rang true: “The specific purpose of this corporation is to promote the values of a Constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility and free-market enterprise under the rule of law through non-partisan, political action (i.e. rallies, e-mail campaigns) and public education (i.e. legislative information, meetings, distribution of literature on the Founders and founding documents of the United States, and voter registration).”
    Kenney didn’t have money for a lawyer, so she did the IRS application the new-fashioned, DIY-Internet way: LegalZoom. It was straightforward—at least for a group like Kenney’s. You give your basic data, names of officers, and your stated articles of incorporation. You describe past and planned activities, explain where you got your money, attach any literature you handed out. You fill out a little chart on your revenue and expenses. You ignore all the questions about capital stock, and classes of membership and assets, because you don’t have a pot to piss in. You hit send, mail a check, and assume you get your IRS letter in fewer than three months. Especially because you write a $400 check for expedited service. And even more especially because the IRS’s only real job in evaluating 501(c)(4) applications is to ensure that you’ve filled everything out the right way, and that you haven’t mistakenly misfiled as a cemetery company.
    Kenney hit send on October 23, 2010. She’d heard nothing by Christmas. Nothing by March. She dutifully filed her requisite tax forms with the federal and state authorities, and waited some more. She’d heard nothing by Easter. Nothing by the Fourth of July. Nothing by Halloween. Nothing a full year after filing.
    She wasn’t too worried. ( It’s the government! It’s always backed up. And with the feds, no news is good news, right? ) She’d been advised that she could operate as if SFVP were already a nonprofit, and that’s what she did. She carried on with the