The Reverend(?) Al Sharpton And Tax Problems?

Absolutely amazing.

Whowoodathunkit?

The Rev. Al Sharpton has cut a deal with the state attorney general that will require his National Action Network to turn over several years' worth of delinquent tax filings by the end of the month, he said yesterday.

"It's going to happen," Sharpton told The Post before his 53rd birthday-cum-National Action Network fund-raiser in Midtown. "We have agreed upon a date and in a month we will come out with them."

As The Post reported yesterday, the preacher's National Action Network is behind on years of filings that document fund-raising income, executive salaries and expenses, according to the Attorney General's Charity Bureau.

The group is also at least four years behind on submitting similar filings, called Form 990s, with the IRS.

Federal and state laws mandate that tax-exempt organizations make these filings available to the public to show how the money is spent.

A spokesman for Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a political ally of Sharpton, confirmed that talks have been under way.

Sharpton has blamed the delay on a January 2003 fire at the National Action Network's headquarters that destroyed documents.

"The problem is reconstructing what was lost in the fire, it takes time," he said. Compounding the problem, he added, are accounting rules that require tax-exempt groups to submit the filings in sequential order by year.

Sharpton also addressed the controversial payments his group has made to witnesses and victims in the Sean Bell shooting, comparing them to the assistance police unions give cops.

"How can [the Detectives Endowment Association] support the detectives and I can't support the victims?" Sharpton asked.

DEA President Michael Palladino asked, "What witnesses before the grand jury are being paid by National Action Network?" and wondered whether it influences their testimony

"The DEA certainly has supported our detectives during their time on suspension. That's what the union is supposed to do," he said.

The Detectives Endowment Association has vocally defended the three police officers indicted in connection to the fatal shooting of Sean Bell and his two friends in the parking lot of a Queens strip club last November 25.

It has questioned the propriety of Sharpton's group of paying witnesses to the shooting.