Form 990 Comments Due

The big news currently in the world of tax exempt entities is the proposed revisions to Form 990. As you may or may not know, Form 990 is the form which entities that are exempt from federal income tax are required to fill out on an annual basis in order to retain their tax exemption.



As noted in previous posts, the changes to Form 990 are going to move forward quickly, and thus the desire to influence the changes must be taken seriously, and non-profits and other exempt entities must submit their proposals and concerns to the Service fairly immediately, as the comment period ends September 14th, and the Service has indicated that it will not provide any extension on this period. As noted inWorchester Business Journal,
"The Form 990 will consist of a 10-page "core" that all filers must complete. This core form is supplemented by 15 schedules, identified alphabetically as Schedules A through R, that must be completed only if the filing entity engages in the activities covered by a particular schedule or must report information in addition to that required in the core form.

The first page of the core form will detail the organization's identifying information and summarize its key financial, compensation, governance, and operational information. The summary page will make the return more user-friendly.

The primary changes are in the areas of compensation, governance, activities outside the U.S. and fundraising/gaming. These have been IRS hot buttons for some time.

All in all, the timeline for Form 990 Comments is dwindling. The treatment of tax-exempt entities is similarly getting the short shrift in the commenting process, while when there are larger entities, or rather, entities with the lobbying ability, the comment period may be (and frequently is) extended to meet the deadlines of the entities regulated, not those of the IRS. Here however, because the IRS wants to have this issue tied up with a little bow and neatly and as quickly as possible, the deadline stands at the 14th of September, and the Service appears unwilling to extend such. Oh well. Tax exempt entities have been able to thrive in the systems in place by the Service since their inception, and no matter what the revisions to Form 990 provides, tax exempt entities shall so continue.