Every Al Sharpton Business Has Been Shut Down In At Least One Jurisdiction

A review of public records in New York and Delaware has revealed that every business started by Al Sharpton has been shut down in at least one jurisdiction for failure to pay taxes.

According to National Review Online, the records of Sharpton’s organizations are “copious, confusing, and sometimes outright bizarre; and together, they depict persistent financial woes for Sharpton, who also personally owes New York State nearly $596,000, according to active tax warrants.”

Bernadette Schopfer, the director of taxation at New York’s Maier Markey & Justic, a certified public-accounting firm that has had no dealings with Sharpton, stated:

He clearly appears — based on the information that’s available to us — to have a history of noncompliance with tax obligations. It appears that [Sharpton] does not file [taxes for his businesses], and then opens up something else. At all the entities we see he has opened up, he has not been compliant with the obligations of the owner of a business. . . . He’s either willful in his behavior, or he’s just sloppy.

Sharpton’s first company, Raw Talent, picked up a lot of tax debt and finally dissolved in 2002 for failure to pay taxes.

Revel Communications, his second company, started in 1999. It either failed to file or pay taxes from 1999 to 2002.

He also started another for-profit entity, Sharpton Media Group. A spokeswoman for National Action Network, Sharpton’s non-profit organization, stated that Sharpton Media Group ceased to operate after a tax settlement.

Bo Spanky is another company he founded, one that dissolved due to a failure to pay a tax debt.

Carl Redding thinks that Sharpton’s problems may be catching up with him.

Redding also stated:

What he’s doing is negligent. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believe that Sharpton has become so powerful it’s diluting everything about him. The African-American community doesn’t trust Sharpton anymore. He’s living in a fantasy world if he thinks he has credibility.

Schopfer, the tax expert, said:

They have a lien, and that’s as far as they (New York State and IRS) can really pursue it unless there’s money that they can claim under the lien. It’s probably on their [radar], and they’ve taken it as far as they can until there’s an asset they can claim.

BCN editor’s note: This article first appeared at Western Journalism.