Tag Archives: 990 EZ

2010 Form 990 Reminder

The filing thresholds for your 2010 form 990 have changed. Many organizations who were able to file the 990EZ for the past few years may no longer be able to now that the threshold for filing the full form 990 has dropped to $200,000 in gross receipts. But groups with less than $50,000 in gross receipts can now file the 990N postcard, up from $25,000 in 2009.

The IRS Wants To Hear From You

If you have not filed a a form 990 for the last three years you may be in trouble. If you work with a nonprofit and have just asked yourself, “what is a 990?” read this and these, then come back. But since this is the Not-For-Profit Accounting blog devoted nonprofit accounting issues I’ll assume my readers know all about 990s. But there may be folks new to the sector out there, maybe you know a new board member, so please pass this information on to them.

As this press release from Guidestar says,

The IRS will begin revoking exemptions on May 16, 2010, but will wait until 2011 to send revocation notices.

If you miss the first filing deadline for 2009 990s of May 15 2010 (the deadline for nonprofits who have calendar year fiscal years that end on December 31) the IRS will start pulling exceptions in six months or so. More about that from the IRS can be found here.

IRS Info and Some Questions and Answers

Questions and AnswersIRS, Governance and the Form 990

I’ll lead off with some exiting news.  Well, it’s exiting to me at least.   Last week I learned that the Urban Institute’s efile.form.990 site should start being able to process the latest version of the form 990 by the end of July (not June).  Their system allows you to electronically prepare and file your organization form 990, 990 EZ and extensions to file.  There is a small fee, but I encourage anyone who prepares your organizations forms by hand to look into their system.

Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS Commissioner for Tax Exempt and Government Entities, made a presentation at Georgetown Law Center this week on nonprofit governance issues and what the IRS sees as its role relating to that.

While both state regulation and sector self-regulation are important, and I welcome and respect them, they do not get the IRS off the hook. Congress gave us a job to do, and we cannot delegate to others our obligation to enforce the conditions of federal tax exemption.

If you would like to read her remarks they are available as a PDF here.

Collaboration Resources

Need some tips on online collaboration tools? Gayle C. Thorsen at IMPACTMAX has a good rundown on some resources that should help you.

Questions and Answers: Revenue Recognition

Each year we have several matching gifts that come in after the fiscal year end of June 30.  Should these receipts be counted toward the past fiscal year or the current year?  For donor recognition purposes we count these gifts in the year they were pledged.  For accounting purposes, how should we be dealing with this?

You should count them the same way you do for recognition. Nonprofit accounting rules for donations take into account the donors intent, and if the check was written in before the end of your fiscal year, or the pledge was made before then end of your fiscal year, it should be counted as that fiscal years money.

Questions and Answers: Employee or Independent Contractor?

I’m a bookkeeper trying to help a recently started, all volunteer nonprofit. The one concern I have is the administrative costs for the person who runs it. If the nonprofit were to reimburse that person for a missed day at work, would they be considered an employee of the nonprofit?

You can’t reimburse somebody for a missed day of work, that is not a “real” expense. That would be considered compensation. This could be a 1099 / independent contractor relationship OR an employee relationship. I would look carefully at the duties tests between the two and make your judgment. The IRS is pretty serious about making sure employers classify folks correctly.  You can check out their resource pages here.

Question and Answers: Hiring Costs

We are a small nonprofit that had a change in our Executive Director. The costs to recruit, interview and move a new Executive Director to our state was extremely expensive. These costs are a one-time charge that are impacting our net assets. Is there a way that I can capitalize them to spread out the impact?

Not in this case. Capitalizing an expense is done for physical assets that have a long useful life so that the expense of the item is spread out over its time of use.  Employees can’t get treated the same way.

Just make sure to clearly explain and footnote the situation on all of your reports and financials so people will not think there is something wrong with the organization and you should be OK.

Do you have a question?  Click here to ask it