The Internal Revenue Service recently released the 2018 Form 990 (Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax) and the Instructions for Form 990. Form 990 is an annual information return required to be filed with the IRS by most organizations exempt from income tax under Section 501(a) of the...
Originally published in part on LinkedIn My prediction for 2019 is very broad and perhaps obvious: an increase in conflicts. Certainly among political parties, political candidates, and political ideologies. But also within the nonprofit sector, which is composed of organizations that represent and/or support political actors and ideologies across...
On December 10, 2018, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued interim guidance on the treatment of qualified transportation fringe benefit expenses under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). According to the IRS press release: The new rules assist taxpayers in determining the amount of parking expenses that are no...
The 2018 Western Conference on Tax Exempt Organizations (WCTEO) is currently taking place in Los Angeles. Here are some selected running highlights. Washington Updates IRS 2018-2019 Priority Guidance Plan – Implementation of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (Items 21, 34, 39, 40, 58); Exempt Organizations (pp. 16-17); General Tax Issues (Item...
We seem to be hearing more and more about cryptocurrency. Is it the money of the future? Is it a passing trend? And what do nonprofits need to know about cryptocurrency, the underlying blockchain technology, and the existing regulation? What is Cryptocurrency? There are four critical definitions required for...
The Western Conference on Tax-Exempt Organizations (WCTEO), my #1 go-to conference every year for the past 13 years, will be held at the Omni Hotel in Los Angeles on Thursday, December 6, and Friday, December 7. We’re proud to be a Gold Sponsor of the WCTEO. You can register here. WCTEO...
On October 3, 2018, the IRS Tax Exempt and Government Entities (TE/GE) division issued their Fiscal 2019 Program Letter (updated link here). Note in particular the emphasis on data-driven approaches and the focus on private foundation self-dealing, nonprofits that had converted from for-profits, and proper worker (employee vs. contractor) classification. Here...
Earlier today I had the wonderful opportunity to guest lecture at Scott Curran‘s Lawyers as Social Innovators class at Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Here are my notes for the class: Introduction – Nonprofit Law On one side of the street you see: a theatre,...
2018 has seen several developments regarding the required disclosures of donors by nonprofits. Disclosures of Donors – Charitable Organizations On September 11, 2018, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the right of the California Attorney General (AG) to require from reporting...
In Part I of this two-part article on IRS Notice 2018-67 regarding the calculation of unrelated business taxable income (UBTI) under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), we discussed the need to separate different lines of unrelated business activities, which is now required to calculate an organization’s unrelated business income tax (UBIT)....