Help for Charities in Putting Their Tax Forms on the Web

Numerous organizations are working to help charities make their informational tax returns, known as Forms 990, accessible via the Internet. Among them:

ALSO SEE:

Return of the Future

For Charities’ Form 990, Final Destination Is an IRS Warehouse in Utah

A Sampling of Common Errors on Forms 990

AIDS Service Provider Accountability Project.

Contains information from the tax forms of charities that help people with AIDS (http://www.accountabilityproject.com).

Form 990 Web Site. Run by an informal coalition of charities known as the Multi-State Filer Project, this site shows non-profit groups how to electronically store, retrieve, and transmit information from the informational tax return (http://www.form990.org).

GuideStar. This Web site is run by Philanthropic Research, a charity that is working with the Internal Revenue Service to develop a way to make non-profit groups’ informational tax returns accessible via the Internet (http://www.guidestar.org).

The U.S Nonprofit Organization’s Form 990 and 1023 Public Access Site. Maintained by Eric Mercer, who is involved in multiple efforts to make non-profit information available on line, this site offers software that allows organizations to display their forms via the Internet. It also hopes to become a central resource for such information. Among the organizations listed on the site, along with links to their 990 information, are the American Red Cross and the California Community Foundation (http://www.muridae.com/publicaccess/access.html).