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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MrLucky who wrote (7175)	5/11/2004 11:31:33 AM
From: Rainy_Day_Woman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

The Teresa and H. John Heinz III Foundation The H. John Heinz III Foundation The Heinz Family Foundation Those first two "foundations" don't show up in IRS Publication 78 or any other public record, as all tax-exempt charities must under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Tax Code. The third group, the Heinz Family Foundation, does show up in Publication 78. It is properly registered as an exempt charity and it files an annual IRS Form 990 report. You can track it on www.guidestar.org. But what about the other two? I was baffled trying to identify them. I wondered how Teresa Heinz Kerry had managed to elude the reporting requirements that apply to all exempt charitable organizations. And I wondered why were they invisible? So I called them. When contacted by phone, The Heinz Family Philanthropies' Washington, D.C. staff said they knew nothing about the two ghost foundations, and urged me to call the Heinz Family Foundation in Pittsburgh. But the Family Foundation staff didn't know either, and they told me to contact the Heinz Family Office. I was passed along to three staffers there. The third person at the Family Office who handled my call, Rose Gibson, had an answer. The reason the foundations are invisible is because they don't exist. They are "funds" within the Heinz Family Foundation fed by non-exempt private trusts controlled personally by Teresa Heinz. "The Teresa and H. John Heinz III Foundation" and "The H. John Heinz III Foundation" receive their money from separate "charitable lead trusts." A charitable lead trust is a private non-exempt trust that provides payments to others (individuals or organizations) for a term of years. At a specified time, the trust principal goes to its recipients free of federal gift and estate taxes, or with the "death tax" greatly reduced. Here's what Rose Gibson at the Heinz Family Office told me: Look at the Heinz Family Foundation's IRS Form 990 for 2001. About twenty pages into the document you'll find a list of "Contributions, Gifts and Grants Received." You'll see that the Heinz Family Foundation received $6.4 million from The Teresa & H. John Heinz III Charitable Trust (Ms. Gibson explained that it's a non-exempt charitable lead trust controlled personally by Teresa Heinz Kerry). There is no explanation of the contribution's purpose, only that it was placed in an informal fund within the Heinz Family Foundation. In other words, the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Foundation is not an exempt foundation; it's a private purse given a name on the Heinz website. That's also the case with the $259,525 that the Heinz Family Foundation received from The H. John Heinz III Charitable Trust, another non-exempt charitable lead trust controlled personally by Teresa Heinz Kerry. It also has no stated purpose, but was placed in another informal fund within the Heinz Family Foundation. It's not a real foundation; it's just called "The H. John Heinz III Foundation" on the "Heinz Family Philanthropies" website. looks like a lot of razle dazzle cross bookkeeping to me