The Internal Revenue Service has released a draft version of the form that charities and other tax-exempt organizations will use to calculate a new tax benefit they will get under the federal health-care overhaul law.

As the IRS noted in an announcement, the new law offers a tax credit designed to encourage small employers to offer health insurance coverage or maintain the coverage they currently offer their workers.

The credit, which went into effect this year, was included in the federal health-care law enacted in March. The provision applies to employers with no more than 25 full-time employees and average wages below $50,000. Nonprofit organizations can apply the credit to certain payroll taxes.

The Internal Revenue Service said nonprofits eligible for the credit should claim it on a revised version of the Form 990-T, the IRS document that groups use to report business income not ...

The Internal Revenue Service today reminded thousands of small charities that they can keep their tax-exempt status even if they missed their May deadlines to file a new online form.

"If you are a volunteer, member, or just a friend of an organization at risk of losing its exemption, please alert the organization and encourage it to go to IRS.gov and find out how the organization can come back into compliance today," the IRS said.

The IRS also released additional advice for some organizations, including those that believe they are exempt from filing because they are religious organizations.

As the tax agency announced last month, small groups at risk of losing their exemptions because they failed to file required informational tax returns for 2007, 2008, and 2009 on May 17 or later can preserve their status by filing returns by October 15, 2010, under a "one-time relief program."

...

An updated guide to laws on the election-related activities of nonprofit organizations classified under Section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code has been released by the Alliance for Justice, a national association of advocacy groups.

The 74-page publication, called The Rules of the Game, "reviews federal tax and election laws which govern nonprofit organizations in an election year, and explains the right (and wrong) ways to organize specific voter-education activities," according to the Alliance for Justice.

The guide answers questions such as: "Are nonprofit organizations completely prohibited from any involvement in candidate campaigns? Is there a minimal amount of electoral activity that 501(c)(3) organizations can do without risking their tax-exempt status? How can 501(c)(3) organizations educate voters about candidates and issues? Does federal election law apply to 501(c)(3)...

A new online database -- called GuideStar Israel -- has been started in Jerusalem with the goal of making the 29,000 nonprofit organizations in Israel "more transparent" to the public through financial and other information.

A free Web site, which is in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, lists and provides official information about each nonprofit registered with the Israeli government's Registrar of Non-Profit Organizations. The site also allows groups, some of them so small they do not have a Web presence, to give additional "in-depth information" about themselves.

GuideStar Israel is a joint project of the government's Ministry of Justice, Yad Hanadiv (which acts in Israel on behalf of the Rothschild family philanthropic trusts), and JDC-Israel. It is operated by NPTech, a nonprofit "public benefit" group established by Yad Hanadiv and JDC-Israel that helps organizations use information...

More and more foundations are paying increasing attention to the role of communications in furthering their public-policy work "in ways that go far beyond the annual reports, press releases, and grant lists of yesteryear," according to a new study of 18 foundations published by the Center on Philanthropy & Public Policy at the University of Southern California.

"Communications, far from being an afterthought or occasional add-on, is at the very center of successful policy engagement for these foundations," says the report, "How Foundations Use Communications to Advance Their Public Policy Work."

Foundations use 10 distinctly different strategies to increase their engagement in public policy through communications, the report says, five of which are "within the grants program."

For example, 12 of the 18 foundations provide grantees with access to communications support, which "includes...

The Internal Revenue Service has issued two free updated handbooks for tax-exempt groups and donors.

The 14-page "Charitable Contributions: Substantiation and Disclosure Requirements," known as Publication 1771, "explains the federal tax law for organizations such as charities and churches that receive tax-deductible charitable contributions and for taxpayers who make contributions," the IRS said.

"There are record-keeping and substantiation rules imposed on donors of charitable contributions, and disclosure rules imposed on charities that receive certain quid pro quo disclosures," the IRS noted.

The 39-page "Tax-Exempt Organizations and Gaming," called Publication 3079, "will provide an exempt organization—whether it is running games already or deciding whether to start doing so—the information it needs to operate in a manner that will not jeopardize its exempt status or generate...

In a procedural move, the Senate has decided -- at least for now -- not to debate and vote on a controversial bill that is intended to lift the veil on who is paying for advertisements and other communications that could influence elections. Many advocacy groups had objected to a donor-disclosure provision in the bill.

The measure last month was passed by the House of Representatives in response to a Supreme Court ruling.

The bill, known as the Disclose Act, would require corporations that issue political communications, including many advocacy groups organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, to reveal information about their donors.

The Senate in coming weeks could reconsider its position on whether to debate and vote on the measure.

The BBB Wise Giving Alliance, a major charity watchdog, has released a list of its standards that national charities most commonly fail to meet when the alliance evaluates them against its "20 Standards for Charity Accountability."

"Insufficient transparency, inadequate board activity, and the lack of assessment of charity effectiveness account for the most failures in compliance," the alliance said in a statement.

The Wise Giving Alliance said that evaluation of the charities that provided it with requested information in the past two years found that 56 percent of charities met all 20 standards while groups in the remaining 44 percent did not meet one or more of the standards.

"Unfortunately, it's evident that many charities have more work to do to satisfy the expectations of donors," said Art Taylor, chief executive of the Wise Giving Alliance.

Following are the alliance standards...

Greater involvement by nonprofit groups in advocacy and lobbying work will require support from organizations' boards of directors, according to nonprofit leaders in a new report.

Participants in a "roundtable" held by the Johns Hopkins Listening Post Project "broadly agreed that they often saw board reluctance to get involved in advocacy," the report said.

"Board members may be reluctant to engage in advocacy efforts because of perceived conflicts of interest, a misunderstanding of the laws and regulations governing advocacy involvement of nonprofits, political pressures and inclinations, or a desire not to alienate funders," said the report.

Peter Goldberg, chief executive of the Alliance for Children and Families, in Milwaukee, and chair of the Listening Post Steering Committee, told participants that the composition of boards has dramatically changed in the past 15 years.

"There ...

The House of Representatives has passed a controversial bill that is intended to lift the veil on who is paying for advertisements and other communications that could influence elections -- including nonprofit advocacy groups.

The measure was passed in response to a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.

The bill would require corporations that issue political communications, including many advocacy groups organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, to reveal information about their donors.

Many liberal nonprofit advocacy groups opposed the bill because of an exemption from its requirements that would benefit large membership organizations like the National Rifle Association.

Exemptions would be provided to advocacy groups that have more than 500,000 members, are more than a decade old, have a presence in all states, and raise 15 percent or less of their funds...