VA Birders,
This report is slightly off topic, but I am sending it as a public service
item. If you belong to a VA Bird Club or other small non-profit group, please
read it.
When I went to the Northern Neck in late July, I picked up a copy of the
July 27, 2010, USA Today. Looking thru it sometime after I returned home, I
found an article on the front page of the "Money" (financial) Section titled:
"IRS gives charities a break; Non-profits get more time to save tax-exempt
status." The article began: "The IRS will provide a reprieve for thousands of
non-profit . . . organizations that missed a May 17 deadline to file an annual
return with the government or lose their tax-exempt status. The new filing
deadline for the non-profits is Oct. 15 . . . The 2006 Pension Protection Act
included a provision requiring all non-profits, except churches and
church-related groups, to file an annual return with the IRS. Previously,
non-profits with annual revenue of less than $25,000 were excluded from the
requirement."
This provision applies to all groups that have received tax-exempt status
from the IRS, so that contributions to them are tax-deductible. Since our
Northern Virginia Bird Club had recently gotten its tax-exempt status, I called
our Treasurer and asked her if the club had filed a tax return. She did not
know anything about this, but said she would check. We had not filed, and
someone sent her an e-mail saying we were on an IRS list of groups that hadn't
filed. We have since filed and received an OK from IRS. I figured if we
didn't know about it, probably some other clubs didn't know either. Hence this
e-mail.
The IRS has created a searchable database of names and last-known addresses
for groups that have not filed. You can check this database at www.irs.gov.
Non-profits with less than $25,000 in annual revenue need only fill out Form
990-N, an abbreviated online form (which our Treasurer said is little more than
a post card). IF YOU DON'T FILE BY OCT. 15, YOU WILL HAVE TO GO THRU THE WHOLE
PROCESS AGAIN AND PAY A FINE TO GET YOUR NON-PROFIT STATUS BACK!
Good luck and good birding,
Val Kitchens
Arlington, VA
