 More than 730,000 charities and private foundations were registered with the Internal Revenue Service as of September 30, 1998, according to the tax agency.
The number of organizations classified under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code rose by 41,266, or 6 percent, from 1997 to 1998, the I.R.S. reported.
In 1998, 733,790 organizations — including more than 50,000 private foundations — were registered with the federal government, compared with 692,524 in 1997.
The number of charities had increased by 5.9 percent from 1996 to 1997, 4.5 percent from 1995 to 1996, and 4.4 percent from 1994 to 1995.
The I.R.S. has acknowledged that an unknown number of the organizations classified under Section 501(c)(3) are still on the government’s books even though they have gone out of business.
The revenue service’s statistics show that the total number of tax-exempt organizations classified under Section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code rose by 41,448, or 3.4 percent, from 1997 to 1998.
The statistics will be published in the 1998 edition of the Internal Revenue Service’s Data Book.
The I.R.S. recently told Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation that the number of charities had increased to 776,557 as of October 31, 1999, and that the number of all tax-exempt groups had risen to more than 1.3 million. But the tax agency has not issued a full report on its 1999 statistics.
The chart below shows the number of organizations registered under each subcategory of Section 501(c) in 1997 and 1998, as well as the number of applications approved and denied in 1998 by the Internal Revenue Service’s field offices.
|
Applications |
Organizations registered |
|
|
|
|
Approved |
Denied |
Other1 |
Total |
1997 |
1998 |
|
|
| Section 501(c): |
|
| (1) |
Corporations organized under act of Congress |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
27 |
14 |
| (2) |
Titleholding corporations |
170 |
0 |
62 |
232 |
7,113 |
7,125 |
| (3) |
Religious, charitable, etc. |
51,329 |
382 |
17,085 |
68,796 |
692,5242 |
733,7902 |
| (4) |
Social welfare |
1,696 |
15 |
700 |
2,411 |
141,776 |
139,533 |
| (5) |
Labor, agriculture organizations |
265 |
2 |
90 |
357 |
64,902 |
64,804 |
| (6) |
Business leagues |
1,694 |
14 |
409 |
2,117 |
78,406 |
79,864 |
| (7) |
Social and recreation clubs |
893 |
13 |
655 |
1,561 |
66,387 |
66,691 |
| (8) |
Fraternal beneficiary societies |
13 |
0 |
20 |
33 |
87,990 |
84,507 |
| (9) |
Voluntary employees’ beneficiary associations |
429 |
0 |
104 |
533 |
14,464 |
14,240 |
| (10) |
Domestic fraternal beneficiary societies |
34 |
0 |
38 |
72 |
20,954 |
21,962 |
| (11) |
Teachers’ retirement funds |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
13 |
13 |
| (12) |
Benevolent life-insurance associations |
107 |
0 |
51 |
158 |
6,368 |
6,423 |
| (13) |
Cemetery companies |
184 |
0 |
40 |
224 |
9,646 |
9,792 |
| (14) |
State-chartered credit unions |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
4,959 |
4,378 |
| (15) |
Mutual-insurance companies |
1 |
0 |
10 |
11 |
1,206 |
1,251 |
| (16) |
Corporations to finance crop operations |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
25 |
25 |
| (17) |
Supplemental unemployment benefit trusts |
9 |
0 |
1 |
10 |
542 |
533 |
| (18) |
Employee-funded pension trusts |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| (19) |
War-veterans’ organizations |
129 |
0 |
66 |
195 |
31,961 |
35,682 |
| (20) |
Legal-service organizations |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
92 |
56 |
| (21) |
Black-lung trusts |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
27 |
28 |
| (22) |
Multi-employer pension plans |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| (23) |
Veterans’ associations founded prior to 1880 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
| (24) |
Trusts described in section 4049 of ERISA |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| (25) |
Holding companies for pensions, etc. |
4 |
0 |
5 |
9 |
908 |
1,017 |
| (26) |
State-sponsored high-risk health-insurance organizations |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
7 |
| (27) |
State-sponsored workers’ compensation reinsurance organizations |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
|
| Total |
56,961 |
426 |
19,336 |
76,723 |
1,230,294 |
1,271,742 |
|
| 1 Includes cases in which the taxpayer withdrew the application or failed to furnish required information.
2 All section 501(c)(3) organizations are not included because certain organizations, such as churches, integrated auxiliaries, subordinate units, and conventions or associations of churches need not apply for recognition of exemption unless they desire a ruling.
|
|
| SOURCE: Internal Revenue Service |
Copyright © 2000 The Chronicle of Philanthropy
|
