The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "exempt" ...
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Model Workplaces, Imperiled Workers
The Center's series exposed serious problems with an ever-expanding government program that promises results through cooperative regulation but often has failed to protect the nation's working men and women. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Voluntary Protection Programs, known as VPP, recognize "model workplaces" and offer them an exemption from regular inspections. But in many cases, this government stamp of approval was a hollow trophy, allowing companies to avoid scrutiny and to attract employees. Even after preventable tragedies at these sites, OSHA rarely cracked down.
Tags: OSHA; occupational safety and health administration voluntary protection program; model workplace
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Disaster Ahead? Deregulated Dams
A Tennessee law allows old watershed dams to be downgraded to farm ponds from high-hazard dams, exempting them from state safety inspections. The reporter discovered 13 of these dams were downgraded in 2008. The lack of oversight poses serious consequences because fatalities are likely to occur should one of the dams fail.
Tags: dams; farm pond; regulation; inspection; safety; public safety
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Treasury Luxury Travel
The Oregonian's investigation spotlighted an obscure corner of state government where Wall Street practices became business as usual, where a set of high-paid employees were granted special exemptions to operate outside the scope of state gift and ethics laws, and functioned with little internal or public oversight. The newspaper revealed that state investment officers charged with monitoring more than $50 billion in state pension investments routinely travel in luxury, paid for by taxpayers and the Wall Street investment managers they are supposed to be overseeing. They stay at high-end resorts and five-star hotels, eat at celebrated restaurants and fly first class. The tab is often picked up by investment firms managing Oregon's investments, who are competing for hundreds of millions of dollars in fees that the pension fund pays annually. The state treasury didn't monitor that travel. It kept no record of the expenses or gratuities provided its employees. And it ignored the potential conflicts of interest.
Tags: State Government; Corruption; Finance; Wall Street; Exemption; Business; Gift and Ethics Law; Travel; State Treasury; State Employees
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Ready Money: The Baltimore City Foundation
The investigation of a private nonprofit group, which was formed to benefit city programs for the underprivileged, revealed a number of shocking facts. Some of them being, that a number of city officials used the group to pay for a few items for the mayor’s inauguration and to avoid competitive bidding for the design of the visitors center. Also, some of the donations went to support political initiatives, not those needing help. The foundation was unaware of the happenings because they were asking few questions from the city government.
Tags: city officials; needy; Finance Department; city clerk; Lenwood M. Ivey; funds; support; philanthropy; agency; tax-exempt; Mayor Sheila Dixon
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Tax-free agencies get little scrutiny
The state of South Dakota depends on sales tax for a large portion of its revenue. But the state has also issued thousands of tax-exempt licenses to nonprofit organizations. The question about these organizations is whether they are actually providing relief to others and if they even still exist. But these questions might not be answered because the state doesn’t track the transactions, even though they are losing revenue.
Tags: sales tax; revenue; South Dakota; tax system; nonprofit organizations; tax-exempt; tax laws; state tax
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Your Right to Know
As Members of Parliament (MPs), they are to use their power to best serve the people. In this article, we see that this is not the case and taxpayers' money is being used for their own personal use. Furthermore, they try to keep this information hidden by ways of denying requests of expenses, delaying publication of information, and exempting themselves from their own laws.
Tags: Members of Parliament (MPs); Freedom of Information Act; FOI; House of Commons; Taxpayers; House flipping; Scandal; London; United Kingdom
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A Question of Calculation: Many charity businesses manage to avoid paying federal taxes
The business arm of more than half of major US charities earn profits without paying taxes due to vague exemption in the tax code.
Tags: charity; charities; taxes; tax-exempt; tax code; nonprofits; business; earnings; profit; unrelated business income tax (UBIT); IRS
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Shriners' Investigation
Frost has reported this story for three years, picking up where the ORlando Sentinel left off twenty years ago by focusing on how the Shriners used charitable donations to fund mortgages for executives, directors and key employees and failed to report these transactions, specifically the mortgage satisfactions, on their exempt organization tax returns (990 form.) This past year, most of Frost's focus has been on the Shriners secret sub-group, the Royal Order of Jesters who were involved in a series of sex crimes.
Tags: Shriners; Royal Order of Jesters; prostitution; sex trafficking; drugs; nonprofit organizations; fraud
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"Prescription for Profits"
The Wall Street Journal examined whether nonprofit hospitals, which account for the majority of hospitals in the U.S., deserve the billions of dollars in annual tax exemptions they receive. The Journal's series revealed that, far from struggling financially, many nonprofit hospitals have become profit machines while shirking their charitable missions. Among the series' findings: Some pay tens of thousands of dollars upfront' others have closed facilities in poor inner cities and built new ones in affluent suburbs; and one hospital put patients' lives at risk to increase its lucrative liver-transplant business.
Tags: charitable causes; medical service; patient care; hospital taxes; nonprofit hospitals; Amish; Mennonites
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Blowing the Whistle on a Casino Giant
The Review-Journal found that remodeling at one hotel in Las Vegas was registered as cosmetic work, thus exempting it from permits or inspections. However, the work was far from cosmetic and the continued renovations threatened public and employee safety.
Tags: construction; renovations; public safety; cosmetic remodeling; hotels