Compliance Guide - 3 Prohibitions

The foreword of the IRS Compliance Guide states "federal tax law provides tax benefits to nonprofit organizations." This particular guide reviews the activities that could mess with nonprofit status. [Later, we will review the IRS publication, Life Cycle of a Public Charity.] For now, there are specific situations that could provide evidence to support a revocation of nonprofit status.

Initially, is it important to note the officers, directors, employees, or in our case volunteers, must work to ensure nothing happens that will jeopardize our nonprofit status:

1- no one can profit, or accrue assets, from the organization's dealings; the IRS prohibits individual benefit because nonprofits serve a public interest, not private ones

2- we cannot directly or indirectly get involved in political campaigns; we can have members or guest speakers who happen to be in politics, but we are prohibited from promoting that aspect of the person.

General US interest, not politically specific.

For example, we can promote voting [have gourds that say Vote!, not not Vote for So-and-So.] Being a gourd organization, the closest we would get to this is doing goofy gourd art saying "Vote Gourdheads for Congress!"  BwHahahaAaAa!

However, having said that, we could not invite a political figure to our annual festival and promote him/her attendance as a political event. This kind of advertising would be deemed a violation in the eyes of the IRS and worthy of revocation of our nonprofit status. It just takes one complaint to the IRS!

3- we are not permitted to engage in "substantial legislative activity" such as lobbying. We cannot urge the public, members, or employees to contact anyone for the purposes of supporting, opposing, or proposing legislation. In the words so commonly stated around the patio, "We are Switzerland!"  We are neutral in matters of politics.

Is this guy for real, really?

Oh My Gosh!!  He is for real!