This week, Capitol Account reported on critics of the Trump Administration’s proposed rule which aims to expand access to alternative assets for the 90 million Americans with 401(k) plans, codifying President Trump’s executive order issued last summer.
Specifically, they cite DOL comment letters filed by two individuals associated with a nonprofit called the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard (IFS) – its president, Knut Rostad and a founder of the group, Kathleen McBride, who’s made nearly 100 donations via ActBlue – who call the proposed rule “extremely dangerous” and say it “shreds logic and truth.”
What Capitol Account doesn’t mention – and was covered by the DC Journal and Financial Planning earlier this year – is that IFS, the nonprofit behind these attacks on the Trump Administration, has repeatedly refused to comply with one of the most basic obligations in federal nonprofit law. Indeed, IFS was so non-responsive that Pinpoint was forced to file an IRS complaint against them in February:
“The Institute for the Fiduciary Standard appears to be operating in clear violation of IRS rules, raising serious questions about its credibility as a group that claims to advocate for transparency and accountability in the financial sector,” said Eric Ventimiglia, executive director of the Pinpoint Policy Institute. “The organization, whose board features former top federal government regulators, has continued to speak out on policies related to the fiduciary standard while repeatedly failing to comply with its most basic disclosure obligations under federal law.”
Under the Internal Revenue Service Code, tax-exempt organizations must provide their most recent Form 990 filings to anyone who requests them within 30 days. Since last November, Pinpoint has made at least eight separate requests to the IFS for those documents. IFS declined to comment on the matter to Financial Planning when the outlet reported on it in March. Further, IFS has ignored Pinpoint’s disclosure requests – and to this date, has not filed its required 990s, according to a review of the IRS website.
The hypocrisy is remarkable. As Brendan Glavin, Director of Insights at the nonpartisan transparency watchdog OpenSecrets stated to Financial Planning about IFS, this is “a pretty clear rule that you’re supposed to make the 990 available.”
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) is fundamentally about transparency and accountability – standards IFS itself appears completely unable to uphold itself.
Before taking the comments of this group seriously, perhaps IFS should first answer why they’re not following the law.
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