November 28, 2002 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The IRS has issued a letter designed to reassure charities that it will not disclose the confidential information about donors that organizations provide to the revenue service.
In response to concerns expressed by a charity adviser, Steven T. Miller, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division, wrote that the agency would take extra precautions to ensure that it does not release information about the identities of individual donors when it makes charities’ federal informational tax returns, known as Forms 990, available to the public.
The letter was a response to issues raised by Gregory L. Colvin, a San Francisco lawyer who represents nonprofit groups. Mr. Colvin noted that the IRS regularly sends Forms 990 to Guidestar, a group that posts the returns on the Internet, and to other public entities. He expressed concern that the IRS could inadvertently attach to those releases a form known as “Schedule B,” in which charities identify donors by name, address, and gift amount and description. Federal law requires that the IRS have this information, but privacy laws prevent the IRS from giving it to anyone else. The IRS may release “Schedule B” only if it has blacked out distinguishing information such as a donor’s name and address.
Mr. Colvin expressed concern that even when the IRS has expunged a donor’s name and address, the donor could still be identified in other ways. For example, if the gift were a distinctive work of art or other piece of identifiable property, readers of the form could discern who had donated the item, wrote Mr. Colvin.
In response, Mr. Miller wrote that the revenue service will release copies of Schedule B only when they are specifically requested. And each time, the revenue service will double-check the form to make sure it has deleted any information, including gift information, that could reasonably be expected to identify a contributor, said Mr. Miller.
