The NRA lost $35 million last year as fundraising from member dues continued to plummet

The financial strains the NRA faces, however, are not just on the revenue side of the ledger. On the spending side, the organization is still bleeding money in legal fees. Of the more than $214 million the organization spent in 2023, fully $43.1 million -or more than 20 percent-was devoted to "legal, audit, and taxes." This is comparable to the totals the group reported in 2021 and 2022, but still constitutes a roughly ten-fold increase over the legal outlays the group reported in 2017, for example, when it spent just $4.3 million .

All told, the NRA lost $35 million in revenue last year, following a loss of nearly $34 million the year before. The massive drop in fundraising has caused the NRA to dip further and further into its reserve funds, with its net assets dropping nearly in half over the course of 2023, marking the second year in a row they had seen such a precipitous drop in revenues.

The new tax filing shows that, in 2023-his final year running the organization-the NRA's Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre pulled in a $1.2 million salary, consistent with recent years' filings. This is despite the fact that LaPierre-long a lightning rod outside the organization-had become a polarizing figure within the organization too. A flood of revelations had shown at that point that LaPierre had lied about private yacht trips , used NRA funds for expensive private flights , and almost benefited from a $6.5 million purchase of a Texas mansion for him and his family that would have been paid for with NRA funds.

LaPierre resigned from the NRA in January of 2024, ending his more than 30-year run as the organization's leader. The following month, a jury in a New York civil trial ordered LaPierre to repay $4.3 million in misspent funds .

Photo of NRA HQ by Joe Loong under Creative Commons license