I’ll be on Nonprofit Radio this Friday, October 20, at 10:00 am PT / 1:00 pm ET talking with host Tony Martignetti about disaster relief. Sadly, this is an particularly timely topic with the ongoing fires in Northern California following the devastating hurricanes of the past few months. Catch us live on Talking Alternative or a...
On September 28, 2017, the IRS released its Tax Exempt and Government Entities FY 2018 Work Plan. Below are some excerpts from the Commissioners about the IRS Work Plan for the division generally in charge of nonprofit tax compliance and some highlights from the Plan: We enter Fiscal Year 2018...
Private foundations in the United States are often interested in funding promising organizations and projects that are based outside of the country. When doing so, these foundations are required to follow certain rules and procedures promulgated by the IRS to help ensure that the foreign grantees are properly using...
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: If you want to do good, your best bet will be to work with,...
We’ve previously weighed in on our strong opposition to any change in the law that would allow public charities to use their resources to support or oppose political candidates. This is precisely why we, along with nearly 4,500 other organizations from every state and segment of the charitable nonprofit...
Earlier this month, the IRS denied the exemption application of an organization whose articles stated that it would provide colleges and universities with the ability to engage in science and engineering studies and research in the submarine environment, including the ability to acquire by purchase, lease, gift, loan or by...
It was recently reported that the Internal Revenue Service is investigating whether a patient-assistance charity, Good Days, has been providing prohibited private benefits to its pharmaceutical company donors by using the donated monies to make purchases of drugs from these donors. According to Reuters: In court papers, the IRS...
Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee failed to pass an amendment to the appropriations bill (largely along party lines), leaving in a controversial rider (Section 116) that would effectively prevent the IRS from enforcing the 501(c)(3) prohibition against political campaign intervention activities (known as the Johnson Amendment), but only specifically...
Earlier today, I had the honor of testifying at the first hearing of the Select Committee on the Non-Profit Sector. Here is my draft written testimony (some of which I omitted from my verbal testimony in the interest of time): Good afternoon Madame Chair and Members of the Select Committee....
Our friends at TechSoup | NGOsource are presenting a live webinar exploring equivalency determination, its role in international giving, and NGOsource’s unique approach to this process on Tuesday, May 23, from 11 a.m. -12 p.m. Pacific time (2-3 p.m. Eastern). According to NGOsource, an equivalency determination is: a process by which a U.S. grantmaker...