Howard Burman was part of a small cabal that perpetuated a corrupt and dishonest coup at Atheist Alliance International (AAI). He resigned as the self-styled President of AAI in May of 2022. Later that same month, it was claimed that a new so-called Board had been ‘elected’, which did not include Howard Burman. As far as the members of AAI have been informed by the purported Board, Howard Burman has had no role whatsoever within the organisation since May 2022. However, it now seems that the coup continues, with Howard Burman secretly continuing to manage and administer the organisation.
There are a number of obligations imposed by the IRS on tax exempt organisations registered in the USA, including annual reporting requirements. The IRS states that there are “penalties (fines and imprisonment) for willfully not filing returns and for filing fraudulent returns and statements”. The image below illustrates some of what the current purported Board of AAI has reported to the IRS in relation to the tax year 2023.
Even though the current supposed Board of AAI includes another resident of the USA, and even though it is not necessary for the Principal Officer to even be from the USA, it seems that Howard Burman continues to act as the Principal Officer of AAI. For the purposes of completing this annual return, the IRS defines a Principal Officer as follows:
“Principal Officer means an officer of the organization who, regardless of title, has ultimate responsibility for implementing the decisions of the organization’s governing body, or for supervising the management, administration, or operation of the organization.”
Quote from IRS instructions to tax exempt bodies
An Officer is “a person elected or appointed to manage the organization’s daily operations at any time during the tax year, such as a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and, in some cases, Board Chair”. The supposed Officers of AAI have all been listed on their web site following each purported ‘election’. Howard Burman has not been in any Officer position, and has not even been a member of the Board, since May 2022. Notwithstanding this, we now learn that not alone did he act as an Officer during 2023, but that he was in fact the Principal Officer of the organisation.
This revelation follows the current supposed AAI Board themselves describing their own appalling governance standards, which itself had followed years of very serious financial wrongdoing. Perhaps then it would not be surprising that when it came to providing a name of an Officer on an official submission to the IRS, all of the current self-styled Directors took one step back in unison. Nevertheless, either the current supposed Board at AAI are lying to their members about who is actually managing and administering the organisation, or else they are lying to the IRS because they don’t want their own names associated with the organisation within official records.
It is not clear which one of these two possible alternatives is worse.
One response to “The Secret Principal Officer Of AAI”
This is shocking behaviour from the so-called “board” of AAI. But not surprising, since they have still said absolutely nothing to their donors or members about the fact that they have been operating illegally since 2021, when they were suspended by the California Secretary of State and Franchise Tax Board.