THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Since it involves tax evasion, it may well be the right foot for a Republican. It seems the little old charity that Crazy Roy Moore once led promised to pay him almost a half a million dollars on back pay and when it did so, did not report it as income.

The Alabama charity once led by Senate candidate Roy Moore did not report to the Internal Revenue Service that in 2011 it guaranteed him $498,000 in back pay, according to an income report provided to The Washington Post by the charity itself.

Five tax law and accounting specialists said it appears the guaranteed payment should have been reported as compensation, a disclosure that would have triggered a federal tax bill of more than $100,000.

Moore and his campaign have not responded to questions about whether he paid the taxes, or to requests that he release his income tax returns.

John Bentley, a board member and former chairman of the charity, the Foundation for Moral Law, said Moore once told him that he had sought advice on the financial arrangement from an accountant. Moore said he was told the compensation was not taxable until he cashed in on the promised back pay, Bentley said. Moore has not yet done so, he said.

The tax issue is the latest in a series of questions over Moore’s financial ties to the Alabama charity where he worked after he was ousted from the state Supreme Court in 2003 for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a public building. Moore, 70, a Republican, is the front-runner in the race to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

In 2011, the charity gave Moore promissory notes worth $498,000 for unpaid salary in previous years, backing them up with a second mortgage on the group’s historic building in Montgomery, Ala. The note entitles Moore to demand payment at any time or claim an equal stake in the building, which serves as the group’s headquarters.

David Walker, a tax law professor at Boston University, said IRS rules for compensation are complex. But he said that it appears Moore’s financial transaction with the charity became taxable the moment he was given the right to demand payment or foreclose on the group’s building.

And now the value of defunding the IRS will probably pay off for the Republicans. If there is no one to investigate this blatant evasion he will probably get elected by the rubes who have to make up what he cheated the government out of.