Breaking News! – 6:45 pm (EDT), May 15, 2010 The first head has been chopped off in the unfolding IRS scandal. President Obama just announced the resignation of IRS Acting Commissioner Stephen Miller. Who’s next?
Scandal At The IRS: What Does It Mean For Nonprofits?
That’s the question everyone in our universe is asking this morning. With the IRS Exempt Organizations division in the crosshairs, what will all this mean to nonprofits going forward? It’s hard to guess until we see how explosive this gets. What we do know is outrageous. EO Revenue Agents working in the Cincinnati, DC and [...]
IRS Guilty of Targeting Conservative Groups
So, it turns out that the IRS Exempt Organizations division has been targeting for intense scrutiny conservative and right-leaning nonprofits which were applying for tax exempt status. This was admitted in an preemptive apology by Exempt Organizations director, Ms. Lois Lerner, in a news conference this past Friday. Ms. Lerner also stated that this was [...]
IRS Improves Nonprofit Data Availability
The Internal Revenue Service made a significant announcement last week when it revealed its upcoming improvements to charity data accessibility. For years, the IRS has come under fire for not providing easy public access to nonprofit tax return data. And just recently, The Aspen Institute released a report that called on the IRS to disclose [...]
IRS to Speed Up Listing of Charities That Lost Status
We have discussed at great length the fact that all tax-exempt organizations are required to file some version of IRS Form 990 each year. As we have also discussed, failure to file a Form 990 for 3 consecutive years results in an automatic revocation of a nonprofit’s 501(c) status. Each month that passes adds to [...]
IRS Makes Significant Changes to 2013 Form 990
It’s that time of year, again…time to start thinking about your nonprofit’s Form 990 filing for the 2012 tax season. It seems like we just had this conversation, doesn’t it? To help get us in the spirit of compliance, the IRS just released its comprehensive list of changes for Form 990. There are quite of [...]
Some Republicans Rethinking Donor Disclosure to Social-Welfare Groups
File this one in the “this should be interesting” column. According to Bloomberg this morning, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R – Alaska) and Representative Walter Jones (R – North Carolina) are working with Democrats on possible legislation that would change disclosure rules from closed to open for large donations to 501(c)(4) social-welfare groups. Some politically-oriented 501(c)(4)s [...]
IRS Issues Changes to 501(c)(3) Status Effective Date for New Nonprofits
About this time every year, the IRS issues a number of Revenue Procedures, which are official, formal pronouncements regarding the manner in which it will handle specific tax situations. Revenue Procedures don’t exactly make law (only Congress can do that…theoretically, anyway), but rather provides a written guideline regarding how the IRS will handle an issue. [...]
IRS Scrutiny of New Nonprofits on the Rise
Applying for tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) status has always been a formidable process for the uninitiated. From the planning to the paperwork to the IRS follow-up, it has never been a walk in the park. The Foundation Group has worked with nearly 13,000 nonprofit startup clients since our founding in 1995. Over the years, we have seen [...]
IRS Exempt Organizations Director To Plead Fifth
Posted on May 21, 2013 by Greg McRay in Commentary, Hot Topics, News
It is a shocking development in a story that continues to explode. Lois Lerner, the Director of the Exempt Organization’s unit at the Internal Revenue Service, who is scheduled to appear before Congress tomorrow morning, has said through her lawyer that she will invoke her rights under the Fifth Amendment against giving incriminating testimony. Her [...]