The New Jersey Policy Institute (NJPI) has submitted supplemental information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regarding an apparent and significant change in how the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) is reporting tens of millions of dollars in contributions to Garden State Forward.
In its latest federal tax filing, NJEA appears to classify more than $30 million in recent contributions to Garden State Forward as political activity on Schedule C. This is a meaningful departure from how the union reported similar contributions in previous years.
NJPI welcomed the apparent change as a positive step toward greater transparency while noting that the new reporting reinforces concerns raised in its original IRS complaint regarding NJEA’s treatment of the additional over $80 million in Garden State Forward contributions since 2013.
“Transparency is exactly what we’ve been asking for, and if the NJEA is now acknowledging that these contributions to Garden State Forward constitute political activity, that’s an important step forward,” said NJPI Executive Director Wells Winegar. “But it also raises an obvious question. If this spending is political activity today, why were tens of millions of dollars in similar contributions treated differently in previous filings?”
NJPI’s original complaint asked the IRS to examine whether NJEA had properly reported contributions to Garden State Forward for federal tax purposes. NJPI alleged that the union had failed for years to identify those contributions as political activity despite Garden State Forward receiving more than $100 million from NJEA since 2013, including over $80 million between 2012 and 2023, and the additional more than $30 million in 2024.
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