Category Archives: IRS

A Nonprofit News Roundup

Posted on February 12, 2009 | 1 comment

roundupI’ve spent the better part of today catching up on my reading of blogs, email and newsletters and thought I would share some of the choice morsels I have found.

From the Ison Law Group’s blog comes an update on the Family Medical Leave Act regulations.  These updated regulations became effective January 16 and it is important that employers that fall under these regulations keep up with any changes that could affect them.

From the Nonprofit Leadership 601 blog comes a calendar of major conferences this year.  Heather also writes about an issue close to my heart, funders who ‘get’ nonprofits.  Her article lists a couple of funding organizations and how they look at funding the whole organization, not just programs.

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Posted in Governance, IRS, Policies and Procedures, Tax Forms

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More Questions

Posted on February 10, 2009 | 5 comments

Questions?Here are some answers to question I received at a recent training.  Many of the questions in this batch came from folks involved with religious organizations, synagogues and churches.

Why are religious organization tax exempt?

The best answer I have is the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Taxing a religious organization might interfere with the free exercise of religion.  For the IRS take on churches and religious organization exemptions please read this.

Is  a board member protected from legal action if it relies on outside advice?

If the board member is not paid and is acting in good faith they are most likely protected if they are involved in making what turn out to be bad decisions, even decisions that result in harm to the nonprofit.  More protection may be had in the organization Directors and Officers Liability insurance policies.  A great source of info on this topic is here, and for an organization that specializes in nonprofit insurances click here.

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Posted in Governance, IRS, Policies and Procedures, Q&A, Risk Management

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News and Notes

Posted on January 22, 2009 | Leave a comment

News StandHere are some interesting news items form the last week or so.

From the Nonprofit Times comes this piece about about the cap for the US Post Office rate hike.  Thanks to a sluggish economy, the article says, when the Post Office petitions for a rate increase this year average increases will be capped at an average of 3.8 %

From the Chronicle comes this item that I could not agree with more. Marc Owens, a former chief of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations (EO) Division has called on the IRS to offer explicit guidance on what it expects in matters of governance from nonprofit organizations.  With the IRS’s new push towards governance regulation and the belief that, according to Steven T. Miller, commissioner of the IRS’s tax-exempt and government-entities division,”a well-governed organization is more likely to be compliant with the tax law, while poor governance can easily lead to trouble” it would be nice to have some kind of official guidance as to what that is.  I agree that a well governed nonprofit is probably a better nonprofit but I would like to see some clear rules so nonprofits are not the object of subjective discipline.

The IRS has announced this years small and mid-size nonprofit workshop series here.

And finally, I have updated the “New 990 To-Do List” since the final version of the form has been released.

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Posted in Governance, IRS

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