ABC Taxes, Tips & Tools

Its not just peo­ple and busi­ness­men who have prob­lems get­ting their taxes done.  Tax-exempt orga­ni­za­tions, espe­cially small ones that rely heav­ily on vol­un­teers are very much at risk of for­get­ing to file their infor­ma­tion returns. Some­times the exist­ing staff is com­pletely unaware they have this obligation.

On July 28, 2010 the IRS announced a pro­gram designed to help cer­tain tax-exempt orga­ni­za­tions retain their tax-exempt sta­tus.  Tax-exempt orga­ni­za­tions that do not file their infor­ma­tion returns (Form 990-N, Form 990-EZ etal) for 3-years will auto­mat­i­cally lose their tax-exempt status.  The IRS is pro­vid­ing one-time relief for such orga­ni­za­tions that have fil­ing due dates on or after May 17 and before Octo­ber 15, 2010.

There are links to pdfs (and excel files) which list the orga­ni­za­tions at risk of los­ing their sta­tus listed alpha­bet­i­cally, state by state on the IRS web­site.  The list includes orga­ni­za­tions for which the IRS does not have a record of a required annual fil­ing for 2007 and 2008, and whose 2009 return, due on or after May 17 and before Octo­ber 15, 2010, has not yet been received.  The list, which was gen­er­ated on June 30, 2010, includes only orga­ni­za­tions with an annual fil­ing require­ment. Cer­tain exempt orga­ni­za­tions are exempt from this require­ment.  Note: Click­ing on the link takes you to the IRS.gov web­site; ABC LLC is not affli­ated with IRS.gov-you will be sub­ject to their poli­cies, not ours, and we do not know what those poli­cies are. 

Accord­ing to the IRS, their list may be incom­plete, as cer­tain orga­ni­za­tions may be at risk of auto­matic revo­ca­tion even if their names do not appear on these lists:

• Sub­or­di­nates in group rul­ings for which the par­ent has not filed a required group return;
• Very small sec­tion 501©(3) pub­lic char­i­ties not required to file an appli­ca­tion for exemption;
• Other sec­tion 501© orga­ni­za­tions not required to file an appli­ca­tion for exemption

These orga­ni­za­tions should check their records and deter­mine whether they are at risk of auto­matic revo­ca­tion because they have not sat­is­fied annual fil­ing requirements.

In addi­tion, the list may include orga­ni­za­tions that were required to file Form 990 or Form 990-PF. These orga­ni­za­tions are NOT eli­gi­ble to take advan­tage of this one-time IRS fil­ing relief to bring them into compliance.

Note: If you donate to one of these orga­ni­za­tions you can rely on an orga­ni­za­tions deter­mi­na­tion let­ter or list­ing in IRS Pub­li­ca­tion 78 to deduct con­tri­bu­tions until the IRS pub­lishes notice on IRS.gov that the orga­ni­za­tions exempt sta­tus has been revoked. 

As you browse the lists you will see it con­tains every­thing from Amer­i­can Legion posts, artist guilds, orga­ni­za­tions that help ani­mals, orga­ni­za­tions that help chil­dren, postal work­ers unions, fra­ter­ni­ties, soror­i­ties, etc.  If you see one of your pet char­i­ties on these lists urge them to take advan­tage of this pro­gram so they can con­tinue to do their good work. Spread the word. 

As always, small busi­ness ser­vices and tax­a­tion are our busi­ness.  If you need help Please give Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing a call.  We would love to engage you as a client.

The usual dis­claimers: Although ABC has made every effort to insure the accu­racy of Taxes, Tips and Tools, mis­in­for­ma­tion, dis­in­for­ma­tion, changes, mis­takes, typos and hack­ers hap­pen, there­fore Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing LLC takes no respon­si­bil­ity for any action taken or results based on the infor­ma­tion sup­plied here in. The con­tent of this blog gen­er­ally applies to busi­ness and indi­vid­ual tax­a­tion in the United States of Amer­ica.  Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice Cir­cu­lar 230 Dis­clo­sure:  As pro­vided for in Trea­sury reg­u­la­tions, advice (if any) relat­ing to fed­eral taxes that is con­tained in this com­mu­ni­ca­tion (includ­ing attach­ments) is not intended or writ­ten to be used, and can­not be used for the pur­pose of (1) avoid­ing penal­ties under the Inter­nal Rev­enue Code or (2) pro­mot­ing, mar­ket­ing or rec­om­mend­ing to another party any plan or arrange­ment address herein.  Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing LLC cur­rently does not have a cer­ti­fied pub­lic accoun­tant, human resource spe­cial­ist, finan­cial plan advi­sor or an attor­ney on staff; this infor­ma­tion is purely for edu­ca­tional pur­poses and not to be con­strued as legal or finan­cial advice. Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing LLC and its employ­ees, mem­bers and asso­ciates are not engage to prac­tice law; you always should dis­cuss legal mat­ters with your attor­ney before talk­ing to any­one else.

Tags: 3 years, 501(c)(3), automatic loss of tax-exempt status, failure to file, Form 990, information return, IRS amnesty program, IRS program, list of organizations at risk, tax help, tax relief, tax return, tax-exempt organization

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 1st, 2010 at 9:01 am and is filed under Other Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.