| Scores of small nonprofit organizations across the Helena area are in danger of losing their tax-exempt status if they don’t take a few simple steps this week to verify their status with the IRS. |
Nonprofits: To verify your status with the IRS,
click here and follow the listed steps. If you have
any questions, call MNA at 406-449-3717. |
Groups with annual revenue of less than $25,000 are particularly at risk, according to the Montana Nonprofit Association, which is trying to alert groups across the state of a pending May 15 deadline.
According to MNA director Brian Magee, some 1,000 nonprofits across the state, including more than 100 in the greater Helena area, need to fill out a simple e-postcard this week. Those that don’t will face a fee of $400 or $850 (depending on size) along with the time and energy needed to re-apply for tax-exempt status.
Magee said that previously, groups with less than $25,000 in revenue were exempt from annual IRS filings. Congress changed that law three years ago, with language saying that any group that doesn’t file for three consecutive years will have to re-apply for nonprofit status.
“This is the first year that that’s a possibility,” he said.
Magee said the nonprofit community supported the law when it was proposed. Requiring annual IRS filings for all nonprofits will help weed out the groups that have become dormant, he said, ultimately providing better data for and about the nonprofit sector.
“We sought a good balance between requiring the filing and not making it burdensome,” he said.
There’s a link to the appropriate IRS site on the MNA home page at www.mtnonprofit.org, and Magee said the form has just eight questions and should take groups just a minute or two to complete.
He said more than 2,000 Montana nonprofits have already completed the form and secured their nonprofit status for another year.
The Real Deal: Real Deals on Home Decor has a new owner. A year after the franchise opened at 1400 Joslyn, Denise Wolf has purchased the business from Brian and Jill Aliperto.
Wolf, who helped her husband, Russ, grow the Farm Bureau Insurance office here, grew up in north-central Montana where her parents owned a small furniture store, so the new business isn’t completely new to her.
Real Deals features both traditional and contemporary home decor, including clocks, lamps, furniture, candles and other objects d’art. The chain is based in Twin Falls, Idaho, and part of its cache is being open just two days a week: Thursday and Saturday.
The store is closed now for the ownership transition, but Wolf plans a grand re-opening for May 20 and 22.
E-mail your Open for Business ideas to john.harrington@helenair.com