Misreporting Political Expenditures to the Internal Revenue Service

Union officials at the Washington Education Association do not enjoy widespread support from teachers for the political agenda they promote. In fact, only 6% of the union's members choose to contribute to the WEA's voluntary political action committee, WEA-PAC.

Instead of curtailing campaign spending to reflect the wishes of union members, WEA officials simply take money from mandatory general dues to fund their election-affecting activities. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent every year on internal political campaigns to "re-educate" WEA members, ballot initiative campaigns, and unreported independent political expenditures.

Union officials also make generous "in kind" contributions from general funds to WEA-PAC, various candidates, and even to political parties.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) discovered these facts while investigating the WEA's political activity at the request of teachers who didn't want their dues or fees diverted to political causes without their permission.

WEA officials tried to combat our work by claiming in their newsletter to teachers that "No WEA dues are used for political contributions." (WEA newsletter, Action, April 1995)

But two lawsuits brought against the union by the Washington State Attorney General and another lawsuit initiated by EFF and concerned teachers have revealed a pattern of campaign expenditures made from the WEA's general fund.

Unable to deny the facts, WEA lawyers recently claimed in a legal brief:

WEA's political expenditures are made from its general fund. In a 1999 trial probing . . . the extent of WEA's political activities and expenditures, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee found that, during an eighteen month time period in 1996 and 1997, at a maximum, WEA's political expenditures constituted no more than 5% of its annual budget.

But WEA officials have been telling the IRS on their annual non-profit Form 990s that they made ZERO "political expenditures, direct or indirect" from 1995 until now.

As a non-profit organization, the WEA gets certain tax advantages for reporting no political expenditures.

EFF has filed this formal complaint with the IRS detailing our findings and asking the agency to initiate a comprehensive investigation of the WEA to determine whether it violated federal tax laws. The WEA has a duty to accurately report its political activities.

EFF Complaint to IRS
WEA 990 form

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org

Quotables:

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson

"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." - John Stuart Mill