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CRL Files Formal Complaints Requesting Investigation Into Center for Responsible Lending's Suspicious Reporting and Lobbying Activities

The Consumers Rights League has filed formal complaints with the Secretary of the Senate, the Clerk of the House and the Internal Revenue Service to investigate reporting irregularities and suspicious lobbying practices by the Center for Responsible Lending.  A comprehensive review of the Center’s own Lobbying Disclosure Act Reports, IRS 990 forms and public information available about the Center’s lobbying activities revealed disturbing patterns of behavior and possible illegal behavior including:

    * The totality of the Center’s activities seems to constitute lobbying in violation of their tax-exempt status.
    * The Center receives the vast majority of their revenue from only two donors—both of whom have potentially      made billions of dollars as a result of the Center’s lobbying activities.
    * The Center may have attempted to hide the role of major donors who stood to benefit from the Center’s  lobbying activities by failing to file disclosures required by the Lobbying Disclosure Act.
    * The Center may have attempted to mask the extent of their lobbying by illegally combining entities on reports  and improperly or outright failing to report lobbying expenditures and activities.
    * The Center has reported significantly fewer lobbying expenditures to the IRS than  to Congress in what seems  to be an attempt to camouflage lobbying expenditures that exceed the allowable amounts for tax-exempt 501c3 organizations.

Related Links: Copy of IRS Complaint, Copy of LDA Complaint, Copy of Complaint Attachments
 

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