Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network have settled tax charges with federal prosecutors and agreed to pay between $2 million and $9 million to the Internal Revenue Service.
The IRS is reportedly still calculating the exact amount, according to the New York Daily News. Sharpton's lawyer Michael Hardy told the News that Sharpton and NAN each owed over $1 million and about 50 percent of each amount resulted from interest charges alone. Legal bills add another $2 million to the amount.
According to an IRS lien recently cited by the New York Post, Sharpton owes $931,397 in federal taxes and $365,558 in New York City taxes, while NAN owed $1.9 million in federal taxes and penalties as of 2006. NAN referred questions to Hardy, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Last month, the IRS reportedly subpoenaed Anheuser-Busch and other companies about their donations to Sharpton's organization, according to the Post. Sharpton labeled the subpoenas a "fishing expedition." Ten NAN staff members were also subpoenaed last December.
The probe by the IRS and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn goes back at least as far as Sharpton's presidential run in 2004. New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo also began investigating NAN last year for not filing the proper state disclosure forms for nonprofits and later turned over his files to federal prosecutors.
