Chanel — the fashion house launched decades ago by Nazi sympathizer Coco Chanel — really wants to get in to Hollywood.
They’ve been spending like drunken French soldiers on leave, underwriting A list parties for a few years now, plying celebrities with booze and gourmet food and loaning out their wares.
Often they use London publicist Charles Finch to host parties for them, especially around the Oscars. They take over the Beverly Hills Hotel with velvet ropes and top security.
That’s all good, but I’m sure the celebrities aren’t aware that the IRS has revoked Chanel’s 501c3 status standing as a charity.
According to eintaxid.com: “The federal tax exemption for Fondation Chanel Inc was automatically revoked on 15 May, 2023 for not filing a form 990-series return or notice for three consecutive years. On 14 August, 2023 the IRS posted the notice of organization’s automatic revocation on IRS.gov.”
The last filing was for 2019-2020.
At that point, Fondation Chanel said it had a fair market value of $4,311,799. They had had revenue of $10.2 million and expenses that totaled $9.7 million.
They certainly had nothing to hide. The bulk of their expenses was to other charitable organizations around the world that came to $9.2 million.
But in the time since they became a Hollywood party thrower, Chanel has not again filed a form 990 with the IRS. Consequently, the revocation.
There are some clues about what’s happened to Fondation Chanel thanks to their reports to the British Charitable Commission. In their report to the UK, Fondation Chanel reported a drop in gross income from 2023 to 2023 from 100 million pounds to just 2.43 million. Meantime, total expenditures dropped from 25 million pounds to 19.7 million.
Today Chanel underwrote what looks like a blockbuster lunch in Hollywood for dozens of female celebs. The occasion was the Motion Picture Academy’s program to support emerging women filmmakers — a worthy cause. Some of the guests included Kate Hudson, Patty Jenkins, Felicity Jones, Riley Keough, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Emma Mackey, Leslie Mann, and Diane Warren. (There were a lot more.)
Meantime, the Fondation has slipped into the abyss, at least in the US where, according to the IRS, they are gone. Even though the New York office is still open, the foundation has moved its headquarters to London. In the consolidation, the French office, ironically, was closed.
