Key Democratic and Republican Senators have worked out a measure to renew and extend several tax provisions affecting charitable giving, including one that allows older donors to get a tax break when they give charities money from their individual retirement accounts.

Until December 31 of last year, donors age 70 1/2 or older were able to transfer up to $100,000 to charity from their individual retirement accounts each year without paying income taxes on the money.

Senators have agreed to renew the provision retroactive to January 1, 2008, and extend it to the end of 2009.

Additional provisions in the legislation would renew and extend other breaks related to charitable giving, including special deductions that businesses may take for gifts of food and donations of books and computers to schools.

The legislation also has provisions that would create tax incentives for...

The Internal Revenue Service has offered a glimpse of some of the changes being made to the draft instructions for the new Form 990 — and says it will post the revised instructions in full on the its Web site by August 15.

The Form 990, which was completely redesigned for the 2008 tax year, is the primary document that charities annually file with the federal government.

Among the changes to the instructions will be a revised definition of the term “key employee” for the purposes of reporting executive compensation, transactions with charity insiders, and other items.

In response to criticism that the original definition was overly broad, the IRS has laid out a three-prong test to identify key employees.

To counter complaints about some of the new form’s extensive reporting requirements, the revised instructions will lay out how charities can prove they have made a reasonable ...

Rep. Robert E. Latta, an Ohio Republican, has introduced a bill that would increase the tax deduction for people who use their automobiles as part of their volunteer work for charities if that work is for “the delivery of meals to homebound individuals who are elderly, disabled, frail, or at risk.”

Under current federal law, volunteers who drive their cars for charitable purposes may deduct 14 cents a mile for their car costs (or be reimbursed by a charity at that rate without the payment being subjected to federal income tax). Some members of Congress say that rate is too low, especially as gas prices have risen in recent months.

Mr. Latta’s bill, HR 6675, would increase the mileage rate for those who deliver meals from the current 14 cents to 58.5 cents per mile, which is the current rate for business expenses.

Many lawmakers have drafted bills in recent weeks to help charity...

A new federal report says the Internal Revenue Service has done a good job of increasing its efforts to educate churches and charities about federal law that bans political-campaign activity by such groups, and that it has improved the way it handles allegations of wrongdoing.

But the report said the tax agency needs to do more “to ensure that tax-exempt organizations receive timely notification that they might be involved in prohibited political activity” and to clarify to IRS employees the criteria it uses to evaluate cases through its Political Activities Compliance Initiative.

“These actions should increase the likelihood that tax-exempt organizations will stop the prohibited activities before the relevant election and that tax-exempt organization activities will be evaluated consistently and fairly,” said the report by the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax...

The Internal Revenue Service has recalculated the value of hundreds of pieces of artwork for which deductions were claimed by taxpayers who donated them to charities or left them to heirs.

As it has in the past, the tax agency’s Art Advisory Panel found that many people exaggerated the value of paintings and other items contributed to charities and placed too small a value on objects left to heirs.

Each year, a committee of art experts meets to review appraisals submitted by people the IRS is auditing. The committee steps in when a taxpayer says a work is worth at least $20,000.

In its report for 2007, the art panel said that 61 percent of 1,002 items in 131 cases had been valued incorrectly. The committee agreed with taxpayers on 36 percent of the appraisals; 3 percent needed further study.

Taxpayers had claimed a total value of $279-million for the items, most of which were...

Mobilize.org, an “all-partisan” network focused on encouraging young people to become more fully engaged in the political process, is seeking grant proposals for innovative projects that encourage clean election practices at the local, state, and national level.

The organization is seeking the proposals by June 15, in anticipation of its Democracy 2.0 Entrepreneur Grant Summit, Money in Politics, to be held July 18 through 21, in Denver.

In partnership with the Sunlight Foundation and Common Cause, Mobilize.org is, according to an announcement on its Web site, “focusing efforts on empowering members of the Millennial Generation to develop innovative clean elections practices, emphasizing the creation of public finance reforms at the local and state level. These types of reforms are intended to give voters more control over the government by making politicians accountable to...

The Internal Revenue Service has dropped its investigation into allegations the United Church of Christ violated federal laws on electioneering.

In a letter. to the church, the IRS said the church’s responses to its inquiry had satisfied the tax agency that the organization had not broken any laws.

The IRS notified church officials in February that the government had a “reasonable belief” that the church had engaged in forbidden political activities when Sen. Barack Obama spoke at a major conference held by the church last year in Hartford, Conn. The IRS also expressed its concern that 40 volunteers for Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat who belongs to the church, “staffed campaign tables outside the [convention] center to promote” Mr. Obama’s presidential bid.

Under federal law, churches and charities must not participate in a political campaign by supporting or opposing a...

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that would renew a tax break that encourages older Americans to give money from their individual retirement accounts to nonprofit causes.

Until December 31 of last year, donors age 70½ or older were able to transfer up to $100,000 to charity from their individual retirement accounts each year without paying income taxes on the money.

Members of Congress have been working to revive the tax break, and the House on Wednesday approved legislation that would extend the break for one year, from January 1, 2008, through December 31.

Before the bill passed the House Ways and Means Committee, a Democratic member of the committee unsuccessfully proposed shaping the measure to encourage colleges to lower their tuition costs.

Rep. Peter F. Welch, from Vermont, wanted to forbid colleges from receiving IRA rollover gifts if the...

Charities have been facing an uphill battle persuading Congress to make permanent a tax break that encourages older Americans to give money from their individual retirement accounts to nonprofit causes.

Now a Democratic lawmaker is pushing the idea — but he wants to do so in a way that encourages colleges to lower their tuition costs, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

Rep. Peter F. Welch, a Democrat of Vermont, wants to forbid donors from taking advantage of the tax break if they give their money to colleges that are not using their money to reduce tuition.

In a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Welch said wealthy colleges were among the biggest beneficiaries of those IRA distributions and should not be eligible to receive them unless they started using their endowments “specifically for containing college costs” for needy students. He urged the Ways and ...

A new project Public Innovators, seeks to build stronger ties between government officials and social entrepreneurs.

The premise is that people from both worlds have a lot to share with each other.

Social entrepreneurs have developed creative new approaches to many of the pressing problems that government officials are trying to solve in areas like education, health care, and poverty. Government, in turn, has the resources that social entrepreneurs need to expand the reach of their programs and create systemic change.

“What social entrepreneurs are really doing is they’re responding to market failures, not unlike a regular entrepreneur responds to market opportunities,” says Andrew Wolk, chief executive of Root Cause, the Cambridge, Mass., nonprofit group behind Public Innovators. “They are trying to do that by creating transformative, innovative solutions that are sustainable.”...