There are more than 4,500 Walmart stores in the U.S., but the nation’s largest retailer continues to expand. The company, once associated with rural communities, has recently made pushes into urban markets. And a new complaint to the IRS accuses Walmart of wrongfully using its tax-exempt Walmart Foundation charity to get a foothold in those cities.
In a lengthy and detailed complaint [PDF] to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen about the Walmart Foundation, more than a dozen community groups from around the country raise concerns about the retail giant’s potential use of a tax-exempt charity to further its corporate ends.
They claim that an analysis of Walmart Foundation giving between 2008 and 2013 shows that donations from the foundation “skyrocketed” in cities like New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles whenever the retailer attempted to enter those cities.
Here are the relevant charts from the complaint for NYC and Boston: