The Return
The annual return is a public document, and so is the letter that granted exemption in the first place. Ten entries on the filing, the calendar it runs on, and the registers that keep it.
Plate · The ReturnTwelve parts and up to sixteen schedules: the most complete public account of a nonprofit that exists.
Entries in this section
- Form 990
Every filing exempt organisation above the small thresholds, annually and in public.
- Form 990-EZ and 990-N
Small filers, annually. The e-Postcard reports eight data points and nothing else.
- Form 990-PF
Every private foundation, listing each grant paid and its contributors unredacted.
- Schedule O
Narrative answers to everything the boxes on the return cannot hold.
- Public inspection
Producing the return on request, at the organisation’s own office, without delay.
- Where filings are read
Nothing — but each one decides what the record looks like by the time a reader finds it.
- The determination letter
Nothing further, once issued — but everything downstream depends on producing it.
- State registration
Registering, and renewing, in every state where the organisation asks the public for money.
- The annual cycle
The fifteenth day of the fifth month after the year ends, extension or not.
- Automatic revocation
Three consecutive years unfiled, and exemption ends without anyone deciding to end it.