‘For anybody else it would be laughable…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) For 13 years, the Harlem-based, charity-nonprofit National Action Network was stiffing its founder and figurehead out of more than a million dollars by underpaying him for his value.
So says that leader, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who retroactively gave himself a raise, according to the New York Post.
According to tax filings, Sharpton’s total compensation last year was $1,046,948, a substantial increase over 2017. Not only did he give himself a 32 percent raise–bringing his salary to $324,000, but he also received a bonus of $159,596 and reported “other compensation” of $563, 352.
It is unclear whether that compensation was related in part to the $531K Sharpton received last year for leasing the rights to his own life story to the charity should it wish to develop Sharpton’s tale into a movie. Also unclear: whether that movie would be a heist film.
On the plus side, after his years of being underpaid and receiving no bonus from NAN from 2004-2017, Sharpton seems to bear no ill-will toward his charity.
The two parties were in agreement that “he has now been fully compensated for all the years he was underpaid and received no bonus,” the Post reported.
Still, Sharpton seemed to suggest that perhaps the reason for his underpayment may have been related in some way to prejudice or racism.
“Fifteen years, you are talking about since 2004 when I came back after running for president,” he said. “For anybody else it would be laughable.”
He claimed the job required “several hours a day” with only one day off a week. Compared to other similar nonprofits and companies, “that’s the salary that they would get,” Sharpton said.
After forgoing a salary in 2008, Sharpton has made more than six figures from the charity in each successive year, the Post said.
Meanwhile, both NAN—which pulled in aroud $7.3 million last year—and Sharpton, individually, have been forced to pay off delinquent tax debts in recent years.
Sharpton last year paid off nearly $100K in state taxes to New York but still owes nearly $700K in taxes for three separate companies, the Post reported.