Don’t expect to find details of Vanessa Kerry’s six-figure salary in the official records of the Department of State-funded nonprofit she started, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.
The records are confused, incomplete and sometimes even contradictory. Some federal and state documents suggest the non-profit – Seed Global Health – compensates Kerry, its CEO, but others indicate that an unnamed “related organization” pays her salary. She is the daughter of Secretary of State John Kerry.
The Peace Corps contracted Seed to carry out its State Department-funded Global Health Service Partnership – a program Kerry created in conjunction with officials from both agencies, TheDCNF previously reported.
Seed has never competed for the more than $9 million in State Department money it has received, even though the nonprofit failed to meet the original contract’s terms. Seed was organized in 2011 in John Kerry’s palatial Boston mansion.
The unidentified “related organizations” paid Vanessa Kerry $140,080 in 2014 and 2015, Seed’s federal 990 tax forms show. She is also a Massachusetts General Hospital physician and Harvard Medical School educator.
But Seed claimed on its Massachusetts state tax form that it was not related to any other organizations. The nonprofit didn’t complete the “related organization” section of the document, which requires the name of Kerry’s benefactor and how much it paid her.
It’s possible differences between federal and state definitions of a “related organization” allowed Seed to skirt the requirement. Other information suggests Seed and possibly federal taxpayers paid Kerry for additional years.
The nonprofit has “researched” and “confirmed the validity” of Kerry’s salary since 2012, federal tax forms show. Yet Seed didn’t show Kerry being paid until 2014, and even then claimed that the payments were provided by a separate organization. It’s not clear why Seed would research and verify a salary it didn’t pay.
Additionally, draft Seed budgets submitted to the Peace Corps and obtained by TheDCNF said Kerry was projected to draw more than $838,000 between 2013 and 2018. Those payments from Seed to Kerry were to include annual raises.
The 2016 to 2018 draft budget shows that the Peace Corps would fund 80 percent of Kerry’s salary.
It’s unclear if these draft documents were finalized, but Kerry’s 2014 salary was identical on both the budget and federal tax forms. The 2013 tax document didn’t indicate her compensation, while the 2015 form showed she didn’t receive the raise included on the budget draft.
Another tax document further obscures important details. Kerry did “not anticipate being compensated” for her work with Seed, according to an attachment to the nonprofit’s application for federal tax exemption.
The attachment said Kerry would work 40 hours per week, though subsequent tax records said she never exceeded 30.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
