Customer Reviews

Every Nonprofit's Tax Guide: How to Keep Your Tax Exempt Status and Avoid IRS Problems

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Tax-exempt nonprofits are a big business. $3.4 trillion in assets and 9.4 million employees, about 7.2% of the total United States workforce. But not every tax-exempt nonprofit is a multi-billion dollar foundation. There are tens of thousands of nonprofits that are small, many of which work with volunteer staffs. Often legal expertise is lacking and people inadvertently do things that endanger the tax-exempt status of these organizations.

This book is designed for them, for anyone in a tax-exempt who doesn't have access to competent legal advice on their IRS Code Section 501(C)(3) tax-exempt status. It is, in a very general way, a lawyer in a book.

Attorney Stephen Fishman provides in very clear language guidance on every aspect of maintaining your Section 501(c)(3) status. He avoids convoluted legal language and uses plain English (bless him!). He begins with the Form 990 which is a disclosure of the tax-exempt nonprofits finances and is publicly accessible. He covers the importance of accounting and record keeping - something that often goes undone in volunteer organizations.

He helps the uninitiated distinguish between employees, volunteers and independent contractors. These distinctions are very important. Fail to withhold and pay employment taxes and the IRS doesn't care who you are or what you did, they go after you.

Next he moves on to contributions of goods, cash and services and how to deal with them. This is a crucially important subject.

Lots of Section 501(c)(3) raise lots of money and pay their executives very, very well. What's to stop an a aggressive fundraiser from setting up a tax-exempt and paying themselves huge salaries? Not much really, but Fishman does point out how to get caught and what happens when you do.

UBIT stands for Unrelated Business Income Tax. At one time, a tax-exempt could engage in a business and not pay taxes on the revenue. Not so much any more.

Finally, Fishman distinguishes between permissible lobbying activities and the forbidden political campaign activities.

This is a well-written, thorough examination of tax issues relating to Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organizations. Even though the subject is narrow, the book still runs to almost 450 pages. Fishman and Nolo have done a good job here and anyone who volunteers or works for a small or medium-sized tax-exempt that doesn't have full access to specialist legal or accounting tax advice will do well to purchase, read and continually consult this book.

Jerry

I can't even tell you how useful this book is. As someone who is just starting a nonprofit, this guide is so, so valuable. It has paid me back in spades simply due to the fact that conversations with my attorney and account are much shorter, because I'm already somewhat educated on the material... Of course, I still go to the "experts" on some things, but this has been so helpful to have, and it allows me to ask tough questions of those "experts" that I do hire.

I've been informed by my attorney that when nonprofits first start, that they oftentimes end up having to close because they don't completely understand everything that's required to maintain their tax status. One example is that you can't become politically involved. Also, you need to start showing a certain percentage of donations within a certain time frame for your new nonprofit. Many, many other things too. This is an absolute must-read for key nonprofit individuals that are in leadership positions. The IRS doesn't allow ignorance to be an excuse, so you're going to need to get educated. And, if you're a nonprofit, you probably don't have, or want, to spend a lot of your money talking to someone when you can get much of the same information in a book. Of course we can't know all the information by heart, but a good foundation of knowledge will set you up for success.

This books delivers comprehensive resources for non profit organizations. I personally volunteer in one, and I did not know our treasurer had so much paperwork to do. Actually, we have realized that there are some items, even he did not know.

Due to the exploits of some badly managed organizations, it seems like IRS has become much stricter on the review of 501(c) filings. You need to handle everything from donations, to travel refunds; from volunteer works, to paying for your employees (ours has only volunteers, even then there is a lot to file).

The book covers all these areas, that you know, and you probably do not know, in great detail, and easily followed language. It starts with a general overview of various non-profit organizations (public charities, private charities, schools, churches, etc), and then goes into describing every aspect of your IRS related paperwork: yearly 990 forms, public disclosures of them, board meeting minutes, volunteer work, expenses, and so on.

If you participate in, or manage a non-profit, this is a definite must have resource. Even if you have a professional handle your paperwork, it will allow you to keep everything in check (we have been burned by this in one occasion).

For every nonprofit, this is a must-have desk resource to have conveniently at hand. As a minimum, every nonprofit leader, manager, and staff member with input into these issues should study this guide completely through in a weekend and then keep it available for quick reference thereafter.

Expertly organized, with an excellent search index and sample forms, this reference tells staff members, in plain English text, what pitfalls to avoid and also what to DO for the long-term betterment of the organization and its goals.

Highly recommended. I keep it at hand and refer to it regularly.

This is helpful info for a small nonprofit that may not be able to afford legal counsel. It's a complex topic, so it's best to review info on state and IRS web sites, in addition to reading this book, but this book is a good place to start.

Nolo is known for its useful series of legal guides. This is one of their better books which will be a good companion for many non profit founders and managers. The book is clearly written and well organized, covering most relevant topics for non profit taxation, which is basically one of the biggest things you need to pay attention to when running a non-profit. It covers even topics like hiring temp or permanent employees, dealing with tax audits, etc besides the more obvious topics like what activities you may and may not engage in, receiving charitable donations, accounting, and actual filing of tax forms. Highly recommended!

Is there anything this book doesn't tell me? I seriously doubt it. When it comes to setting up or running a business, I'm as knowledgeable as the next guy. I'm not an account or attorney, but I do know quality when I see it. Nolo's Nonprofit Tax Guide is considered by many to be the best resource available in it's category. In fact, all of Nolo's tax and legal books rank at the top. Know that when buying this book you are getting much more than you've paid for. The money and time you'll spend with this book will save you at least 10x the money and time otherwise spent when tax time rolls around.

My advice: save yourself the hassle of searching the internet for answers to your tax-related questions and buy this book. You'll save time, stress and money in the end. This book is clearly written and well organized. Sometimes its sounds like the IRS speaks a foreign language, but this with book the author translates all the legal jargon into easy to understand concepts and instructions. You'll sleep better at night thanks to Nolo.

I also have Nolo's Tax Deductions for Professionals and am equally impressed.

Every Nonprofit's Tax Guide is another gem of a book from the NOLO series, and there are plenty of these wonderful guides for just about anything you need to know, from someone I can rely on, an impressive series for the layman, companies, and plain old folks.

What I like most about the book is that is very user friendly, meaning plenty of white space on the pages, wide margins for note taking, and the font is large. I also like that some sections are shaded for easy locating, and indicating something important, something that stands out, something to locate easy. The titles are nice bold font, subtitles easy to read also.

Sections are easily set off with bullets; you can find important sections that provide cautionary advice and tips. These sections feature graphics. The questions are asked for you, everything you may have not thought about.

Chapter breakdowns.
Every chapter has its own table of contents! Everything in a chapter belongs exactly where they put it. No topic seems out of place. There is even a chapter on how to get more help, resources, rulings, policies, etc. A thorough index is provided.

What you will learn here
The first thing to know and understand is what the word nonprofit means; the IRS Filings, record keeping and accounting, the rules on volunteers, employees, and independent contractors. You will learn all about charitable giving and property donations, lobbying and more!!

You will have all that you need in this handy paperback book. Try this one Nonprofit Meetings, Minutes & Records: How to Run Your Nonprofit Corporation So You Don't Run Into Trouble and How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation ....Rizzo

Nolo's Every Nonprofit's Tax Guide is a very nice guide to learn everything that is needed to make your nonprofit organization compliant. With this book you will learn how to keep your tax-exempt status and avoid IRS problems. It's written in a way that is very easy to follow and understand (with examples etc, cause as you know that tax laws are very complex and very delicate). I highly recommend this book for those who are running their nonprofit for the first time (or if you have been running it for a while but don't really know much other than submitting the tax forms) and want to learn the rules and guidelines about nonprofit organization

Here are some example of the valuable information in this book (which I didn't know before reading this book):
1. How to create your legal entity and obtain tax-exempt status.
2. What do we mean when we say "Nonprofit"?
3. Explains nonprofit tax regulations and how to maintain nonprofit status (what Tax forms needs to be filed, detail filing process and the new form 990, etc)
4. What to do when someone try to harras you/your nonprofit?
5. GAAP rules and accounting method (cash, accrual, hybrid etc)
6. Detail charitable giving rules (e.g. If donation to a nonprofit is conditioned/earmarked for a particular person or small group of people, then the gift is not tax deductible for the donor, though the organization can still accept the donation. Rules on quid pro quo donation, etc)
7. Who should worry about UBIT? (i.e. tax imposed on income earned by nonprofits from business they conduct that are unrelated to their charitable mission)
8. What are prohibitive activities? (e.g. political campaign activities, endorsing candidate for public office, contributing money to political campaign, etc)
9. Which organization usually gets audited?
10. How to set your organization general ledger (asset, liabilities, net asset, income, expense)
11. Rules on paying and reimbursing employees and volunteers (e.g. value of time and services donated is never deductible, etc)
12. Rules on hiring employees and independent contractors

Sidarta Tanu

This is an excellent current resource for understanding tax exemptions for non-profit organizations.

However, this is probably the last year you can actually use this book, in it's current form.

The government is tax hungry and they are starting to implement taxation on many things that were before tax exempt.

I am confident that Nolo will revise this book for next years tax season, when most of this years changes will occur. And the year after that.