USATF settled/settling a lawsuit for $395,000 in 2017. What was/is that for?

On a related note, teams are still waiting for their prize money from Club Cross...

Nailed it..

Put more simply: USATF is a pass through entity for this transaction basically. They received an asset of ~$25M, which is spread over the life of the contract.. and they pay out $25M to the agency over the life of the contract. So you net the asset against the payable and it's $0.

polevaultpower wrote:

The change in auditors may have also had to do with how the commission was accounted for. I've heard that, but I am not sure if the timeline matches up.

I'm not a finance person. But the commission was originally accounted for in a way that it did NOT show up on the tax return. The auditors made them amend their tax return to account for it.

USATF went out of their way to hide the fact that they paid these guys a lot of money to negotiate this deal. Probably because it doesn't fit with their narrative that Max is a genius at selling sponsorships. Also because Max is making big bonuses that one can only assume are related to this contract.

Is it normal for a non-profit to have to amend their tax return for something like that?

I am pretty sure these were just late filed and not amended. Amended returns are noted as such in box B, top left of the first page. It is odd the returns have been consistently filed 13-14 months after year end - even after the "issue" about the commission was resolved. They did see a drop off in financial leadership so maybe the staff is not up to the challenge. (It is possible it was amended but the box was not checked.)

The timeline for the auditor change must have been in anticipation of some of these issues. I assume the former auditors were clear the liability to pay Helfant (or CAA) had to be accrued and then deferred/spread ... and then the new auditors (presumably somehow beholden to Max but an otherwise reputable regional firm) required the same treatment.

Other note, the 2015 return (

) schedule B (sponsors and donors) is not redacted so you can see the names and amounts - normally this is redacted (the IRS allows that). Look now as I expect someone will correct this and get the public disclosure version posted.

Non-Profit CPA wrote:

I am pretty sure these were just late filed and not amended. Amended returns are noted as such in box B, top left of the first page. It is odd the returns have been consistently filed 13-14 months after year end - even after the "issue" about the commission was resolved. They did see a drop off in financial leadership so maybe the staff is not up to the challenge. (It is possible it was amended but the box was not checked.)

I'm talking about the 2014 return. It was clearly amended, and that was definitely the part that changed... how they report the commission.

polevaultpower wrote:

I'm talking about the 2014 return. It was clearly amended, and that was definitely the part that changed... how they report the commission.

http://www.usatf.org/usatf/files/a0/a0737689-6a71-4d24-ba89-5a47484bf352.pdf

Good catch, I was not following the timeline. Where in the amended 990 did you see the amended items - I did not see the commission issue on schedule O.