A health-care proposal announced by Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, would require nonprofit hospitals “to conduct a community health needs assessment at least once every three years and adopt an implementation strategy to meet the community needs.”

The senator’s bill, known as the “chairman’s mark,” will be reviewed by the finance committee next week.

The Baucus proposal also would require hospitals “to adopt, implement, and widely publicize a written financial assistance policy” and to “bill patients who qualify for financial assistance no more than the amount generally billed to insured patients.”

Mr. Baucus’s plan would require the Internal Revenue Service to review information about a hospital’s community-benefit activities, currently reported on the Form 990 informational tax return, at least once every three years. “Such review ...

Nonprofit hospitals would have to periodically conduct a “community needs assessment” and follow other new, unspecified requirements under a proposal announced by Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee.

The proposal was included in a “framework of a plan” for health-care changes that Mr. Baucus drew up for consideration by a group of Democrats and Republicans on the finance committee. “This is not a final product,” the document cautioned.

No other details about requirements for hospitals were described in the document.

Mr. Baucus said he plans to release a draft of a health-care bill next week and that the finance committee is expected to begin work on the legislation the week of September 21.

The Internal Revenue Service currently uses a “community benefit” standard to determine a hospital’s nonprofit eligibility.

The Internal Revenue Service says it will raise the fee it charges organizations to apply for tax-exempt status as charities beginning with applications that are postmarked after January 3, 2010.

For organizations with annual gross receipts that average more than $10,000 during the four years before they file their application, the fee increases from $750 to $850.

For organizations with annual gross receipts that average $10,000 or less during the four years before applying, the fee goes from $300 to $400.

But the IRS said that it will lower some fees sometime next year after it makes available a Web-based software program, known as Cyber Assistant, that is designed to help organizations “prepare a complete and accurate” application for charity status, which is called the Form 1023.

Organizations that use Cyber Assistant to prepare their applications will be charged $200...

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

The new tips focus on information the IRS seeks about organizations’ foreign activities on both the “core form” filed by all organizations and Schedule F, “Statement of Activities Outside the United States,” that some groups must also submit.

The IRS significantly redesigned the Form 990 for the 2008 tax year, and Schedule F is a new attachment.

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 ...

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.

Following a setback in a federal court case earlier this year, the Internal Revenue Service is releasing proposed regulations that would change the procedure it follows when pursuing inquiries into churches.

The proposal apparently explains why the IRS last month cited a “procedural issue” for stopping an audit of the Warroad Community Church, in Warroad, Minn. The review focused on the content of the pastor’s sermons and whether they included any political endorsements.

A U.S. District Court judge in Minneapolis ruled in January that the Living Word Christian Center, in Brooklyn Park, Minn., did not have to comply with an IRS summons for information because the summons was authorized by a government official of insufficient rank.

Living Word argued that an April 2007 letter from the IRS alerting it to an inquiry into its finances, signed by the IRS’s director of exempt...

Under a bill passed Thursday by the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Corporation for National and Community Service would receive about $1.15-billion, approximately the amount that President Obama requested for the agency in his proposed budget for 2010.

The House of Representatives earlier voted to cut $90-million from Mr. Obama’s budget request for the agency, which operates AmeriCorps and other service programs.

In a statement, the Senate Appropriations Committee said its budget recommendation “puts AmeriCorps on the path” to having 250,000 participants in 2017, a goal approved by Congress earlier this year in the Serve America Act. AmeriCorps has about 75,000 participants this year.

The appropriations committee allocated $50-million for a new Social Innovation Fund that would provide money for “social entrepreneurs” and nonprofit groups that are developing creative...

The Internal Revenue Service has told a Minnesota church under examination for the content of the pastor’s sermons that the government is no longer pursuing the audit because of a “procedural issue” involving the tax agency’s initial inquiry into the church.

But in a letter to the Warroad Community Church, in Warroad, Minn., the IRS said that it “may commence a future inquiry” into the church after the agency resolves the procedural matter, which the government did not explain in detail.

Gus Booth, pastor of the church, was one of many ministers who last year preached sermons intended to deliberately challenge the 1954 federal law prohibiting charitable organizations and churches from engaging in partisan political activity.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit group that argues cases on behalf of Christian causes, promised free legal support under its “Pulpit...