See update at end of story
A highly dubious organization operating in violation of both state and now federal law is soliciting cash donations around Las Vegas in the name of–wait for this–law enforcement. Can it get any richer than that?
In the past month alone I’ve received a number of telephone calls at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters seeking a donation for either Police Officers Support Committee PAC or National Police Officers Alliance PAC. There’s no material legal difference. They both are names used by something called POSC PAC, ostensibly based in Woodbridge, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C. The callers say donations will be used to benefit law enforcement.
POSC PAC, the reporting parent, was founded only in January 2023. Since then, it has solicited in Nevada (and presumably nationally) under its “brands.” But in Nevada it has done so without first registering and making filings as mandated by a 2021 Nevada law. Perhaps POSC PAC sensed (correctly, in my view) that the Silver State is not big on consumer protection.
I know about the calls during 2023 because I received some of them, and contemporaneously wrote them up (here and here). I flat out called POSC PAC yet another “faux charity.” That’s a political action committee (the PAC part) that sounds like a charity when making the pitch, but isn’t. Rather, it spends almost all the donations received on fundraising and other overhead and almost nothing on the stated mission of somehow advocating for law enforcement. Organizers often received undisclosed fees. It’s a swarmy racket.
A faux charity is not required to disclose its terrible financial efficiencies when cold-calling someone on the phone, usually using soundboard technology, a human voice controlled by a computer and a supervising operator who responds by choosing pre-recorded answers. When asked by a sucker would-be donor how donations are spent, the answer is often to consult an organizational website or check official periodic filings with government regulators.
Except that POSC PAC has no periodic filings to check!
The organization apparently missed the deadline for publicly reporting to the Internal Revenue Service all of its individual receipts and expenditures during 2023. The report, called a Form 8872 and required to be filed electronically, was due by January 31. “There is no delay in when the form is filed and when it is available” on the IRS website, an agency spokesperson told me. Continue reading →