yeah, if it is actually the case that they have had no revenue and no costs, then filing a 990 is dead simple. You write down a bunch of zeroes. It literally takes an hour. More importantly though, why did the board not clamp down on them?
Note that I'm not speaking in this particular case or trying to say it's not his fault (it is), but in general.
It's seventeen pages of zeros and checks. If you want to see what a zeroed 990 looks like: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0By7AdX1eMEY2LUp6SG1T...
The careful eye will note on p. 13 where I screwed up on the e-version, and so the scanned (and sent) version has hand-written checkmarks. It's a good idea to dot your eyes and cross your ts on these forms.
There's also a 199 there, which is the state equivalent of the federal form.
In the case of non-profits, the IRS is providing oversight that the non-profit is actually acting as a non-profit and doing good (very broadly defined) in the world. It's a check against people running a non-profit that doesn't do anything but make a few people rich.
Surprisingly the IRS really does not make life difficult for non-profits.
I'm as libertarian as they come, but corporate taxes and all their byzantine systems are not like a personal income tax, where you can go to jail or have your wife and child shot for not paying up - it kind of is an opt-in system. So there is somewhat of a categorical difference.
If they had no revenue are they even required to file at all? I know that for personal income if you do not owe any additional tax than has already been collected then there is no requirement to file.
Since they didn't get 501c3 status until 2012, the 990 doesn't seem appropriate except for this most recent year anyway.
Yes.
> Since they didn't get 501c3 status until 2012, the 990 doesn't seem appropriate except for this most recent year anyway.
All nonprofits with an EIN need to file 990s even if you don't have 501(c)(3) status. Corporations are not individuals so there are different rules. The rules for registered nonprofits are stricter than for-profits - AND screwing them up can jeopardize attempts to get 501(c)(3) down the line, although typicially the IRS will be reasonable, if you make a handful of trivial mistakes here and there they won't kill you.