2006 Form 990 Instructions

According to BNA Money and Politics ($$), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will post on its website instructions for the 2006 Form 990 used by exempt organizations to report their revenues. Many are expecting changes to the reporting requirements in the 2005 form, "which asked not only for the names of highly paid individuals and their relationship to the charity and other organizations but the amounts paid to each individual by the related organization." The IRS is also actively investigating charities that make contributions to political organizations, and has sent examination letters to 79 churches and 179 non-church charities. The IRS has reasons to believe these groups made direct contributions to political organizations. IRS's Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division is expected to have a report on the program this spring. In addition, IRS is stepping into new territory by looking at how many clicks away from a charitable organization a political Web site is. "Is it one link or five links?" he [Marvin Friedlander, chief of exempt organizations rulings and agreements] asked. "We have a couple of cases that present that issue to us, as to whether a 501(c)(3) is engaged in political intervention depending on what other sites it is linking to."
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