The Nonprofit FAQ

How must NPOs respond to public requests for 990s?

From the IRS website: A charitable organization must make available for public inspection its approved application for recognition of exemption with all supporting documents and its last three annual information returns. Pursuant to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights 2, the organization is required to provide copies of these documents upon request without charge (other than a reasonable fee for reproduction and copying costs). Penalties are provided for failure to comply with these requirements. For more information, see our frequently asked questions (http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=96430,00.html), the final regulations published in Internal Revenue Bulletin 1999-17 (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-irbs/irb99-17.pdf). Note (17.May.07): The Pension Protection Act (2006) requires the same public disclosure of the Unrelated Business Income return (Form 990-T) for all filings after August 2006. This form must be made available to the public by all organizations filing it, including those that are not required to file a Form 990. (Ed.) by Eric Mercer (January 8, 1999) There has recently been significant expansion of the federal laws and regulations requiring tax-exempt organizations to provide public access to documents they submit to the IRS, including annual tax returns (Form 990 and its relatives) and their Application for Recognition of Exemption (Form 1023). In January 1999, the IRS is releasing new regulations that implement Section 1313 of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights 2 (TBOR2), enacted on July 30, 1996. Furthermore, these new public access requirements have been expanded to include private foundations. (The complete texts of the Federal Register notice and the regulations are available at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=1999_register&docid=99-8638-filed. The effective date of the new regulations is June 8, 1999. There is also a practical discussion of how nonprofits should approach making the required disclosures at http://www.nonprofits.org/nonprofits.org/bulletins/990508.html --PB 5/21/99.) In short, almost all tax-exempt organizations are now required to provide public access in a timely fashion to their most recent three years of federal tax returns and to their original Application for Recognition of Exemption. These must be complete, including From 990 Schedule A and all other accompanying materials submitted to the IRS, with the sole exception of those attachments that name individual donors. A very narrow exception is also made for organizations the IRS determines are being subject to a harassment campaign. There are significant fines for noncompliance. Generally speaking, people who visit one of the tax-exempt organization's offices and ask for these materials must be provided with the opportunity to view and copy them, and tax-exempt organizations must send copies of these materials by mail upon request. Minor fees for copying, postage and other processing may be assessed. An exception to these required access mechanisms is made if the organization makes the materials "widely available," which may be satisfied by publishing them on the Internet in a suitable format. A discussion of the regulations, links to the original laws and regulations, examples of online tax returns, and other related resources, may be found at the U.S. Nonprofit Organization's Form 990 and 1023 Public Access Site http://www.muridae.com/publicaccess/. Other related sites include the Form 990 Web Site http://www.form990.org/, the AIDS Service Provider Accountability Project http://www.accountabilityproject.com/, and GuideStar http://www.guidestar.org/. Provided by Eric Mercer January 8, 1999; updated 9/4/99; 6/24/01; 2/3/05 -- PB