Sharpton Owes Overdue Taxes, Penalties

It's okay, though: he is planning a March Against Whitey outside the IRS Building.

NEW YORK (AP) — Big corporations give him money. Presidential candidates seek his endorsement. He has influential friends in Congress and the governor's mansion.

The Rev. Al Sharpton has emerged over the past decade as perhaps the nation's most prominent civil rights leader, a status that was demonstrated again this week when he led protests against police brutality that briefly shut down six of Manhattan's major bridges and tunnels.

But he still carries baggage from his early days as a fire-breathing agitator: Government records obtained by The Associated Press indicate that Mr. Sharpton and his business entities owe nearly $1.5 million in overdue taxes and associated penalties.

Now a U.S. attorney is investigating Mr. Sharpton's nonprofit group, a probe that an undeterred Mr. Sharpton brushes off as the kind of annoyance that civil rights figures have come to expect from the government.

"Whatever retaliation they do on me, we never stop," he told the AP. "I think that that is why they try to intimidate us."

Over the past year, Sharpton's lawyers and the staff of his nonprofit group, the National Action Network, have been negotiating with the federal government over the size of his debt, which they dispute. The group has also been trying to pay off tens of thousands of dollars it owes for failing to properly maintain workers compensation and unemployment insurance. (H/T - The Washington Times)

Oh, that's a shame. Please God, let Al come to Philadelphia to protest the "Evil Police Brutality" Video: I would love to slap the cuffs on him myself.