November 19, 1998 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Internal Revenue Service has dropped — at least for now — the idea of reducing the number of non-profit groups that are required to file an informational tax return, known as a Form 990.
Currently, all charities with annual revenue of at least $25,000 are required to file. Last year, the I.R.S. floated the possibility of increasing the minimum budget figure to an unspecified amount (The Chronicle, November 27).
Steven Miller, acting assistant commissioner for the division of the I.R.S. that oversees tax-exempt organizations, said that the suggestion was made during an internal review by the revenue service. Because the minimum filing figure had remained unchanged since 1982, Mr. Miller said that agency officials thought an adjustment “could be a customer-friendly solution for some smaller organizations.”
But state attorneys general and others helped nix the plan, Mr. Miller said, because of the concerns they raised about their ability to keep tabs on small non-profit groups if many of those organizations were no longer required to file a Form 990.
In a letter to the I.R.S., the National Association of State Charity Officials asked the government to abandon the idea. “It is often the smaller, less sophisticated charities that have the greatest need for checks and balances and public scrutiny,” wrote Craig R. Mayton, an Assistant Attorney General of Ohio who was then co-president of the association of charity officials, and Betty D. Montgomery, the Ohio Attorney General.
Said Mr. Miller of the I.R.S.: “That doesn’t mean that in the future we won’t take another look at this, but for now the threshold will remain at its current level.”
