(May 21, 1999<.i>
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) _ Income-tax forms filed this week by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee acknowledge that it provided tuition, room and board, most of which can be traced to relatives of IOC members.
However, tax attorneys issued a disclaimer that the payments do not meet the Internal Revenue Service definition of a "scholarship program," according to a story in The Salt Lake Tribune.
Previously the scholarships payments were under "other costs."
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether more than $1 million in questionable payments, some of which continued after Salt Lake won the right to host the 2002 Winter Games, constitute a crime. Also at issue is whether SLOC and the bid committee falsified tax returns or abused their tax-exempt status.
When the scholarship payments were revealed late last year, SLOC officials initially called them "humanitarian aid," but the tax returns did not record the expenses as scholarships or as charitable contributions.
In the past, SLOC always checked "no" when asked if SLOC had directly or indirectly engaged trustees and officers in business transactions such as sales, exchange or leasing of property; lending of money or other extension of credit; or furnishing of goods, services or facilities.
SLOC's 1997-98 returns filed Monday cited several transactions, but omitted details such as the value of the deals and the names of the officers and trustees involved.
SLOC paid off a $12.3 million loan to First Security in January 1998, about six months' worth of interest on that loan amounted to $867,000, according to SLOC's audited financial statement.
First Security Corp., president Spence Eccles is a longtime member of SLOC's executive committee, now called the management committee.
Some trustees sit on the boards of law firms that provide legal services to SLOC, tax forms state. Members or their spouses also own or serve on the boards of companies that operate retail gift stores, department stores, hotels and restaurants with which SLOC does business.
Missing from the tax report is any mention of Alan Layton's construction company, which rebuilt Eccles-Rice Stadium, site of the opening and closing ceremonies, and an enclosure for the speed-skating oval at Kearns. Layton resigned from SLOC in February.
Albert Rodriguez, whose Los Angeles law firm Rodriguez, Horii and Choi was hired by SLOC late last year, would not say if he has advised SLOC to amend previous reports. He labeled this year's return "an extra effort in the interest of complete and full disclosure."
Other items in SLOC's tax return included:
_ Revenues jumped from $2.7 million in 1996-97 to $26.7 million in 1997-98.
_ Among the highest-paid independent contractors was United Concerts, which was paid $1.2 million for producing a five-minute stage show at the 1998 closing ceremony in Nagano, Japan. In all, 34 vendors received more than $50,000.
(Copyright 1999 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
APTV-05-21-99 0713MDT
