Let me explain what I heard from David. The notification of the Venturist status being on hold had been sent to an older address and not forwarded. David is looking into it and should have an answer on Monday. He is saying that it appears to be an error, since we were never notified that the tax status was on hold -and the reasons for it don’t apply to our case. The reason was an automatic revocation from not receiving a 990 series form that the Ventursits had not needed to fill out for many years, so it looks like the issue will be resolved soon-within a week he thinks, he will also be writing you himself. The paperwork that said we were on hold, also says it may/or may not effect our tax deduction status—it looks like we just need to get the right paperwork in. The way the wording is, is that if we get the right form in our status is retroactively instated. I’m not sure when this started, but people were able to use donations to William O’ Rights Cryonics Charity fund in ’08 and ’09 as a tax deduction.
Summary: There was confusion about paperwork requirements, and it should be resolved within a week.
“We have just learned that our tax deduction status was automatically and wrongfully suspended by the IRS for not filing a form 990. In the past the IRS confirmed that we don’t have to file that form. However it seems recently their equipment automatically suspended us. We are tax exempt, they have made an error and I will contact them on Monday. There is a process where the retroactively remove the organization from their auto-recovation list. That is what we are going to ask them to do although Idon’t know how long it will take them to restore us. Meanwhile, I believe that people can continue to make donations and deduct them.”
We have found more information out, it does seem that we can get it resolved but don’t know exactly how long it will take. Over 200,000 organizations had the same thing happen to them so a lot has been written about it.
“Notice 2011-43
This notice provides transitional relief for certain small organizations that have
lost their tax-exempt status because they failed to file a required annual electronic notice (Form 990-N e-Postcard) for taxable years beginning in 2007, 2008 and 2009. A small organization – that is, one that normally has annual gross receipts of not more than $50,000 in its most recently completed taxable year – that qualifies for the transitional relief under this notice and applies for reinstatement of tax-exempt status by December 31, 2012, will be treated by the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) as having established reasonable cause for its filing failures and its tax-exempt status will be reinstated retroactive to the date it was automatically revoked.”
From Shannon Vyff in an email on this issue:
Summary: There was confusion about paperwork requirements, and it should be resolved within a week.
(ETA: Shannon posts on this directly)
Here is what David Pizer said,
“We have just learned that our tax deduction status was automatically and wrongfully suspended by the IRS for not filing a form 990. In the past the IRS confirmed that we don’t have to file that form. However it seems recently their equipment automatically suspended us. We are tax exempt, they have made an error and I will contact them on Monday. There is a process where the retroactively remove the organization from their auto-recovation list. That is what we are going to ask them to do although Idon’t know how long it will take them to restore us. Meanwhile, I believe that people can continue to make donations and deduct them.”
We have found more information out, it does seem that we can get it resolved but don’t know exactly how long it will take. Over 200,000 organizations had the same thing happen to them so a lot has been written about it.
“Notice 2011-43 This notice provides transitional relief for certain small organizations that have lost their tax-exempt status because they failed to file a required annual electronic notice (Form 990-N e-Postcard) for taxable years beginning in 2007, 2008 and 2009. A small organization – that is, one that normally has annual gross receipts of not more than $50,000 in its most recently completed taxable year – that qualifies for the transitional relief under this notice and applies for reinstatement of tax-exempt status by December 31, 2012, will be treated by the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) as having established reasonable cause for its filing failures and its tax-exempt status will be reinstated retroactive to the date it was automatically revoked.”
Mark has been getting it resolved and has found some great information on the problem: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=240239,00.html
A cryonicist found these for us:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-11-43.pdf
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/n2011_44.pdf
http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=240101,00.html
http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=239696,00.html
http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=169250,00.html