Reporters should ask for proof that McInnis paid tax on water money
Asked by the Colorado Independent July 22 why $112,500 of his income from the Hasan Family Foundation was paid to “Invest 2, LLC,” McInnis said, “There is no reason.”
Of the $300,000 he got for his water fellowship, $112,000 was paid by the foundation to “Invest 2, LLC,” not to McInnis directly.
Reporters should investigate 1) how this came to pass and 2) whether McInnis used the arrangment to avoid paying income tax or evade taxes completely.
Today, I’ll shed a little light on the first question.
Dr. Aliya Hasan, who’s a board member of the Hasan Family Foundation, told me last week that McInnis requested that the foundation secretary pay the $112,500 to Invest 2, LLC.
“He just randomly asked us one day to do it,” Hasan told me. “He asked our secretary.”
Hasan said she did not know why McInnis did this.
Reporters should ask McInnis why he requested that the Hasan Foundation pay Invest 2, if, as McInnis told the Independent, there was “no reason” for it.
With respect to the questin of whether McInnis paid income tax on this money, as I wrote before, Invest 2, LLC, was not listed among McInnis’ assets in The Denver Post back in April, when the McInnis campaign allowed a Post reporter to review portions of McInnis’ tax returns starting in 2005. Companies with similar names were listed in the Post article as assets, but Invest 2, LLC, was not among them. The Colorado Independent also looked at the McInnis tax returns in April and at his congressional disclosures, and did not see Invest 2 as one of McInnis’ assets. (McInnis did not allow reporters to make copies of his tax filings, so the Independent couldn’t check his returns again as of last week.)
Invest 2, LLC, was dissolved in 2006, so if McInnis was an owner, the entity should have been listed on his tax returns. McInnis told the Independent he paid taxes on all the Hasan foundation money.
If McInnis was not an owner of Invest 2, then the big question is why he paid the Hasan money to owners of Invest 2. The owners of Invest 2 are not known, but Lori McInnis, Scott McInnis’ wife, is named on the Colorado Secretary of State’s website as the registered agent for the corporation.
The Post reported that other McInnis LLC’s, like “Invest 1,” were partnerships with his five siblings and his wife.
Reporters should ask McInnis for proof that Invest 2 was included on his income tax. And, if he was not an owner of the company, why did he pay others the Hasan money?
This is basic follow-up reporting on a major story that has yet to be done.