franklin_m

AMA is dying and they know it. They then made a play to make membership mandatory with the "...within the programming..." language in 336. How do we know? Look a the membership revenue trend in the attached chart as compared to the timing of 336. During the years prior to the lobbying / passing of it, the AMA had seen membership revenue do nothing but go down. Absent raising dues, which they'd one once already in 2002, they thought the law might help reverse the trend. But we see that it didn't, and once again they raised dues in 2015.

While I've not received their 2016 IRS filing yet (note 1), I suspect we'll not see a dramatic change. So this "Fly commercial AMA has you covered" is what it appears to be on face value ... AMA blurring the line yet again in an effort to change their revenue trajectory.

Note 1: Per IRS rules, non-profits must provide copy of IRS 990 upon written request, which I made on 4 December via the "Ask AMA" function on their website. Per the law, they've got 30 days to comply. I suspect they'll ignore the request since they know I'll be digging through it to help provide the transparency that they will not. If I don't get it by 4 January, on 5 January I'll send a letter to IRS along with a copy of my written request to the AMA. Probably not the type of attention they want, but then again, all they had to do was comply with the request.