Charitable giving, nonprofit tax rules, and what donors and organizations need to know to give (and receive) the right way.
Smaller charities, meaning those that have annual gross receipts of less than $25,000, may be at risk this year of losing their tax-exempt status. Under a 2006 law, those charities were required to file a form 990-N (sometimes called an e-postcard) with IRS each year. Failing to file for three years in a row results…
We do a lot of nonprofit and tax-exempt work at my firm. People come into my office with all kinds of ideas for charitable organizations. I thought I’d heard it all – apparently, I hadn’t. The “Case of the Charitable Sperm Bank” has put an interesting twist on the types of charitable activities that taxpayers…
It has been a grim year for most charitable organizations over the past two years. Giving has been down markedly, with gifts in 2008 representing the largest dip in charitable giving (-5.7%) in more than five decades. That’s why the total amount of donations made to various relief agencies in Haiti is fairly mind-boggling. According…
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was formally indicted yesterday on 19 counts of fraud and tax evasion. A federal grand jury returned the indictment, which alleged that Kilpatrick used a tax-exempt charity, the Kilpatrick Civic Fund, as his own personal piggy bank. He is said to have spent more than $640,000 of the charity’s money…
Taxpayer asks: What is it that you need to show you gave things to Goodwill or your school other than a statement from them to that effect? My lady said something I do not understand. Is there some special form they have to fill out or what? Thanks. Oh yea I saw you on AOL….
IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman has issued the following statement about charities who have not yet filed their forms 990-N: Now that the May 17 filing deadline has passed, it appears that many small tax-exempt organizations have not filed the required information return in time. These organizations are vital to communities across the United States, and…
I’m sure that the IRS expected their charitable organizations section of the web site to be popular on yesterday but probably not as popular as it was. With an important deadline looming, charitable organizations found wait times to be excruciatingly slow and subject to time outs as they attempted to file the form 990-N (otherwise…
Years ago, small tax exempt organizations had it easy. So long as they raised less than $25,000 in a calendar year, they general didn’t have to file an informational return with IRS. Easy. That all changed in 2006. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 made it mandatory for most tax-exempt organizations to file an annual…
If you were to make a list of things about me and things about my mom, you’d notice a lot of differences. She lives in the south and likes rodeos, westerns on AMC, and Christmas sweaters. Me? I live up north and I like baseball games, quirky British comedies and I wear a lot of…
Taxpayer asks: Hi, I read your blog entry that explains that service time donated to a charity is not deductible. What if there is an actual assignable value of the service time to the charity? For example, I am donating my services as an auction item for a charity auction; if somebody buys it for…