News and Avoiding Scams

As part of the Pension Protection Act passed in 1996, Congress added a new penalty for tax-exempt organizations that fail to file their annual return for three years in a row. Formerly, the only penalty was a monetary penalty. The new law has upped the ante to impose the ultimate penalty: loss of exemption. The penalty applies to organizations that fail to file Form 990, Form 990-EZ, as well as the relatively new Form 990-N. Form 990-N is a relatively new form that must be filed by tax-exempt organizations whose revenues normally fall below $25,000. Organizations that have their status revoked may apply for reinstatement based on reasonable cause for the failure to file. The first three year period is 2007 through 2009, which means that once the 2010 filing deadline passes for these forms (May 15, 2010 for tax-exempt organizations with calendar fiscal years), organizations that failed to file their Form 990s forms for those three years will automatically lose their tax-exempt status.