LEWISTON — Congressional candidate Jason Levesque of Auburn has received a letter from the Federal Election Commission asking for clarification of contributions listed in a campaign finance report.

Levesque, a Republican, is challenging U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, for Maine’s 2nd District seat in 2010.

The FEC letter, dated Sept. 22, highlights five contributions made by four limited liability companies listed in the most recent quarterly report by the Levesque campaign.

“Your report discloses one or more contributions that appear to be from a corporation,” Robin Kelly, a senior campaign finance analyst at the FEC, wrote in the letter.

Corporations are prohibited by federal campaign finance law from making direct contributions to candidates.

But Levesque’s campaign manager, Matt Wylie, said the filings followed the instructions laid out in the FEC’s campaign guide for candidates.

“The company is allowed to make (a contribution) as long as they are not treated as a corporation,” he said. “It’s my understanding that (the filing) is the way the FEC wants it done and obviously given the fact that we received a letter, we’re going to get clarification.”

According to the FEC guidebook, LLCs can be treated as corporations or partnerships if they meet certain criteria.

For example, if an LLC has publicly traded shares or files its taxes as a corporation, campaign finance law treats it as a corporation and direct contributions are banned.

But if it files its taxes as a partnership, campaign finance law treats it as such and direct contributions are permitted, as long as they are attributed to the participating partners correctly. The contributions count toward each partner’s personal contribution limit, which is $2,400 per person, per election cycle.

Contributions are also permitted through single-member LLCs if they don’t require corporate tax treatment and the contributions will be attributed to the single member, according to the FEC guide.

The campaign had not yet followed up with FEC but plans to do that, Wylie said.

“We just got the letter,” he said. “Obviously, we filed it as we understood we were instructed as the right way to file it, but not a lot of LLCs show up on FEC reports.”

Christian Hilland, an FEC spokesman, said he couldn’t comment on specific cases, but he said letters from the reports analysis division are merely potential violations of campaign reporting laws.

“It could be that the contributions are not in fact from a corporate entity,” he said. “So that’s why we give them 30 days to respond.”

The Levesque campaign has until Oct. 27 to clarify things, according to the letter.

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