Has Turning Point USA or affiliated groups filed as a 501(c)(4) and in what years?
Executive summary
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is publicly described as a 501(c) nonprofit founded in 2012 and regularly files IRS Form 990s under EIN 80‑0835023, while an affiliated political advocacy arm, Turning Point Action (TPAction), has been reported as a separate 501(c) entity that was prepared for public launch in 2019; available reporting and organizational records confirm the 501(c) status and 2019 reporting about a 501(c) affiliate but do not provide a complete public ledger of every 501(c) tax filing year for TPAction in the sources supplied [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. Turning Point USA’s nonprofit classification and filings
Turning Point USA is repeatedly identified in public profiles and archival descriptions as a section 501(c) nonprofit organization that was founded in 2012, and it is listed in nonprofit data services that rely on IRS filings; Charity Navigator and GuideStar note TPUSA’s EIN and that the organization is required to file Form 990s with the IRS, and an IRS Form 990 tied to EIN 80‑0835023 appears in government public records [1] [4] [2].
2. The emergence of a 501(c) affiliate: Turning Point Action
Multiple reports and secondary sources state that Charlie Kirk and associates prepared a 501(c) vehicle called Turning Point Action as a sister organization to TPUSA and that the organization was reported as coming online in 2019; Wikipedia and SourceWatch both cite May 2019 reporting that TPAction was being unveiled as a 501(c) political advocacy entity, which aligns with contemporaneous coverage that the group would be allowed to engage more directly in campaign-related activity [3] [5].
3. What the filings cited actually show — transparency and limits
The concrete government filing in the provided materials is a Form 990 PDF linked by the IRS that corresponds to Turning Point USA’s EIN, demonstrating TPUSA’s public nonprofit reporting to the IRS; Charity Navigator and GuideStar likewise point to TPUSA’s public Form 990 history, confirming ongoing 990 filings for the 501(c) entity [2] [6] [4]. The supplied sources do not include an IRS Form 990 or other official filing explicitly labelled “Turning Point Action” in order to catalog the specific years that TPAction filed as a 501(c), so the record in these sources is incomplete on the question of the exact filing years for the 501(c) vehicle [2] [3] [5].
4. How journalists and watchdogs have characterized the relationship
Investigative and watchdog outlets compile TPUSA as a 501(c) with separate affiliates for political activity; SourceWatch and other observers describe Turning Point Action as the 501(c) affiliate and have documented its role in partisan mobilization and coalition activity, including public controversies tied to political events — material that contextualizes why a 501(c) structure would be used but does not itself substitute for IRS filing records showing exact filing years [5].
5. Bottom line with caveats
The available documentation and reporting in the provided sources support a firm conclusion that TPUSA is a 501(c) and that Turning Point Action was reported and described as a 501(c) formed or unveiled in 2019; the sources include TPUSA’s IRS Form 990s and multiple secondary accounts about TPAction’s 2019 launch, but the supplied materials do not include a comprehensive list of TPAction’s IRS filings or an official public ledger explicitly showing every year it filed as a 501(c), so a full year-by-year filing chronology for the 501(c) affiliate cannot be confirmed from these sources alone [2] [1] [3] [5] [4].