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...
A nonprofit organization organized and operated for charitable purposes may be exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code while a nonprofit organized and operated for social welfare purposes may be exempt under Section 501(c)(4) of the Code. We are often asked about the difference between the terms “charitable”...
The ABCs of Nonprofits, now in its second edition, is an excellent resource for nonprofits, their leaders, and their advisors on many of the legal issues affecting nonprofits. Author and highly respected nonprofit organizations attorney Lisa Runquist has just made this valuable book available in Spanish. Here’s what Lisa...
On February 22, 2017, the IRS announced that publicly available information from approved Form 1023-EZ tax-exemption applications is now available electronically for the first time. The data on IRS.gov is available in spreadsheet format and includes information for approved applications beginning in mid-2014, when the 1023-EZ form was introduced, through 2016. The...
Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574 (1983), is a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court held that the IRS had the authority to revoke the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University (BJU) based on the university’s racially discriminatory practices that were contrary to public policy. According to...
Would you like charities, including mosques, temples, synagogues, churches and other houses of worship, to be able to give your donations to politicians running for office? Would you like mosques, temples, synagogues, churches and other houses of worship (that are automatically tax-exempt and not required to disclose their financials or their donors)...