February 8, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Internal Revenue Service has just made available its 2006 Forms 990 — a version that includes changes to a controversial requirement that charities disclose information about financial relationships between board members and the organizations.
The changes come one year after the IRS expanded its requirements for the reporting of such relationships, requirements that were designed to offer more information about the operations of nonprofit boards. Some nonprofit leaders had worried that the 2005 requirements went too far and would dissuade volunteers from serving on nonprofit boards.
“The concern was, Are we going to lose valuable board members because they are going to have to disclose personal financial information,” says Geralyn R. Hurd, a certified public accountant at Crowe Chizek and Company, in Chicago. “From a board member’s perspective, they are volunteering their time. They shouldn’t have to disclose personal financial information.”
The 2006 form takes some of those concerns into account. Nonprofit groups must still disclose financial relationships involving their board members. But the new rules do not require as much financial background information for some of those relationships.
“We received a fair amount of criticism and concern about the scope of what we’re asking for,” says Ward Thomas, a tax specialist at the IRS. “We made some pretty substantial revisions for 2006.”
For more information on the new forms: Go to http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=167156,00.html.
