WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation has filed revised tax returns for four years, including changes that reflect millions of dollars in grants donated by foreign governments during the years that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton served as secretary of state.
Foundation officials said the Clinton charity does not owe the U.S. Treasury any new taxes as a result of the revisions and the accounting changes do not show any substantial changes in the Clinton Foundation's bottom line during those years. The officials also said that the new break-out for government grants during Hillary Clinton's tenure at the State Department between 2010 and 2013 — totaling $15.6 million — had previously been included in the charity's total grants and contributions.
Clinton Foundation CEO Donna Shalala said a section of the charity's tax forms that specified the disclosure of government grants "was left blank in error" in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Shalala said the charity's accountants said the organization was not legally required to amend its taxes, but that if it did "it would be important for us to correct error in the review."
Shalala said the foundation's decision to file the revised Form 990 tax documents for nonprofits on Monday was made "as a public disclosure for our friends, supporters, partners and the general public." But the move comes amid Hillary Clinton's campaign for the presidency and follows a spate of revelations about the Clinton family charity's heavy reliance on foreign governments to buttress its aid projects around the world.
Clinton signed a detailed conflict-of-interest agreement with the State Department before she became secretary of state in 2009. But while the agreement was designed to limit possible ethics conflicts, it was crafted with loopholes that enabled foreign governments that had multiyear funding commitments to the Clinton Foundation to continue providing those grants. The result was Clinton at times conducted diplomacy with some governments that were funding her family's charity.
The revised tax filings made available by the foundation do not specify the identities of the governments that provided grants during Hillary Clinton's tenure at the State Department. But separate lists of donors provided annually by the charity show that at least seven governments funded Clinton Foundation projects during those years: Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Algeria, Norway, Australia and the Dominican Republic.
Last April, after media revelations about its foreign government donations, the Clinton Foundation tightened its policy, limiting large donations to only a select group of foreign governments that had previously aided the charity's health, climate change and poverty programs. Those nations include the United Kingdom, Australia, Netherlands, Canada, Germany and Norway.
– by AP Reporter Stephen Braun
