The Internal Revenue Service has rejected suggestions that it redesign the informational tax return filed by private foundations and simplify the filing rules for small private foundations.

The tax agency rebuffed the ideas of the federal Taxpayer Advocacy Panel, made up of 99 “citizen volunteers” from across the country. The panel noted that all private foundations must file the return, known as the Form 990-PF.

“Form 990-PF captures a large amount of data on a variety of charitable activities,” the committee said. “The complexity of this form results in a 32-percent error rate. In addition, small foundations require professional tax support to meet the reporting requirements due to the complexity of Form 990-PF.”

The committee suggested that the IRS redesign the Form 990-PF in the same way the tax agency has revamped the Form 990 for charities for the 2008 tax year with a basic ...

People throughout the nonprofit world are paying tribute to Sen. Edward Kennedy, who died Wednesday. Among them:

• Steven Waldman, editor of the religious Web site Beliefnet, highlights Senator Kennedy’s role in getting a bill passed to create AmeriCorps in 1993. Mr. Waldman wrote a book about that fight, The Bill. “I got to watch up close Kennedy’s extraordinary skill as a legislator,” he writes on The Huffington Post. “Far from being an ideologue, Kennedy was invariably the guy going for the deal.”

• Michael Brown, chief executive of City Year, an AmeriCorps program in Boston, recalls Senator Kennedy’s support for City Year and national service.

• ServiceNation, a coalition that promotes national service and volunteerism, pays tribute to Senator Kennedy on its blog. The senator was a key mover behind a bill that became law last spring to expand the country’s...

President Obama needs to revamp foreign assistance programs and should look at the work of foundations and other institutions to do so, argue two scholars at conservative think tanks in Washington.

In The Weekly Standard, Carol Adelman of the Hudson Institute and Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute write that they examined grant makers, corporations, the World Bank, and the U.S. Agency for International Development to come up with nine principles of successful foreign aid.

They include making sure that local people have a say in aid efforts, that programs are flexible and can adapt to new problems, and that there is “a tolerance for risk and a willingness to recognize failure.”

The American aid agency must also do more to consult with foundations, charities, religious organizations, and companies, they say.

“U.S. AID must not only be aware of but also work ...

President Obama this week appointed Helene Gayle, chief executive of CARE, to be chairwoman of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

The council serves in an advisory role to the president and secretary of health and human services, making recommendations on polices to prevent the spread of HIV, disease research, and how to assist people who have HIV/AIDS.

The role is voluntary and part time, and Ms. Gayle will continue to serve as head of the charity, according to a press statement by CARE, an antipoverty group in Atlanta.

Ms. Gayle previously worked on fighting HIV/AIDS for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Haunted by memories of the failed effort to revamp health care during the Clinton administration, some nonprofit groups this summer are taking a more aggressive approach to pushing their ideas for a health-care overhaul.

But do nonprofit groups and foundations have the clout — and the money — to make a difference in the high-stakes battle over the future of America’s health-care system?

The membership organization AARP believes it does. With 40 million members, AARP is using its size and influence to help lead efforts to support health-care legislation that would benefit its far-flung membership.

To learn more about what the organization hopes to accomplish, listen to The Chronicle’s latest edition of Philanthropy This Week, a podcast about and for the nonprofit world.

Federal and state governments should modernize the way they pay for human services provided by charities, especially given the rising demand for help that has been fueled by the economic downturn, a new report says.

The report — which summarizes conclusions of a working group of nonprofit, academic, and other leaders who met in May — says the current system of cost-reimbursement contracts, instead of grants, and the increasing use of Medicaid “has strained service providers to the breaking point.”

Charities often get reimbursed less than their actual costs, with no margin for spending to improve their operations, it says.

The report, “Human Services Financing for the 21st Century: A Blueprint for Building Stronger Children and Families,” was released by Deloitte LLP, a consulting firm; Alliance for Children and Families, a national network of human-service charities; and the...

A coalition of 23 arts groups has weighed in on the health-care debate, calling on Congress to pass legislation that creates a public insurance plan and ensures that people can get affordable health coverage without being denied because of pre-existing conditions.

“Many in the cultural workforce work independently or operate in nontraditional employment relationships, leaving them locked out of group health-care coverage options,” the groups said in a statement.

They said measures were also needed to reduce “the skyrocketing health-insurance costs” that are eating up the budgets of nonprofit arts organizations.

“Millions of cultural workers stand ready to assist our leaders with solutions that protect all Americans and its creative sector with guaranteed universal insurance coverage deserving of the wealthiest nation in the world,” they said.

The statement was signed by groups...

The Congressional Budget Office has provided House and Senate budget committees with dozens of options for altering federal spending and revenues.

Some of the options focus on tax issues important to charities but generally do not appear likely to be considered by Congress anytime soon.

For example, one would provide a limited charitable deduction to people who do not itemize deductions on their tax returns. One would limit the tax benefit of itemized deductions to 15 percent. Another would put a $150-million cap on the outstanding stock of tax-exempt bonds that a nonprofit organization, including a hospital, could use for financing.

The Congressional Budget Office said the options come from a variety of sources, including legislative proposals, the president’s budget, Congressional and budget office staff members, other government agencies, and private groups.

The budget...

The Internal Revenue Service has released the fourth in a series of tips to help nonprofit organizations prepare their Form 990 informational tax return, the primary document that groups file each year.

The new tips, which come in the form of frequently asked questions, focus on information the IRS seeks about arrangements a charity has with “related organizations.”

The information is sought in various parts of the Form 990, especially Schedule R, “Related Organizations and Unrelated Partnerships.”

The Form 990 was significantly redesigned for the 2008 tax year.

As the economy worsens, there are signs that state and local governments will seek money from tax-exempt groups to help close budget gaps — and New Hampshire is becoming a prime example.

According to the Associated Press, Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, is seeking $85-million in surplus money from the Joint Underwriting Association, a tax-exempt medical malpractice insurance fund.

The association had planned to use part of the surplus to pay dividends to its member doctors. But the governor argues that the money belongs to New Hampshire because the state created the fund and because it is exempt from paying taxes.

The association is fighting the effort in court.

An editorial in the Union Leader, a newspaper in Manchester, N.H., says that while the malpractice fund is an unusual organization, lawmakers could make similar arguments against other tax-exempt organizations.

“If...