Don't Buy This Book If...Or When To Call A Professional
Prepare Your Own 501(c)(3) Application was designed to help the tens of thousands of organizations who prepare their own 501(c)(3) applications each year. This excerpt from Prepare Your Own summarizes the activities or circumstances that make a "Do-It-Yourself" application inappropriate.
1. If your organization is one of the following:
limited liability company or other less common type of organization
hospital, other medical care facility, or co-operative hospital service organization
college, university or co-operative service organization for an operating educational organization
509(a)(3) supporting organization
private foundation or private operating foundation
home for the aged or handicapped
successor to a for-profit entity
charitable risk pool
governmental unit described in section 170(c)(1)
communal religious organization described in section 501(d)
2. If you plan to engage in any of the following activities:
candidate nights, voter registration or publishing of voting records
tax exempt bond financing
low income housing
joint ventures
consumer credit counseling
compensation through non-fixed payments
3. If your group is not different in any way from an organization described unfavorably in a Revenue Ruling
4. If you are interested in obtaining a group ruling for your organization's affiliates
5. If you have doubts about your ability to prepare the "good faith and no prejudice to the interests of the government" arguments needed because your organization failed to file its application before the 27 month deadline
6. If your organization does not easily meet the public suport tests and needs to exclude unusual grants, or make a "10% Facts & Circumstances" argument.
[Since the IRS eliminated Advance Rulings, public support issues are no longer a key part of your original 501(c)(3) application.]
You might also consider having your application professionally prepared if you find you keep procrastinating about preparing it yourself.
In any event, it is almost always a good idea to have someone knowledgeable about Exempt Organizations tax law and application procedures review your application before you submit it to the IRS.
