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Author Archives: Suzanne Perry
July 19, 2012, 10:37 am
Congressional Hearing to Examine Complex Charity Operations
A Congressional panel will hold the second in a series of hearings on tax-exempt organizations next week, this one focusing on charities that have complicated operations such as profit-generating arms.
“Over the last two decades, the organizational structures of public charities have become increasingly complex, creating compliance and transparency issues,” said Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., a Louisiana Republican who heads the oversight subcommittee of the House Ways and Means committee.
He said his subcommittee wants to learn more, for example, about the rules governing the unrelated-business income tax, or UBIT, which applies to money charities raise through commercial activities not directly related to their missions.
It also will explore whether the revised Form 990 tax document that charities must file, introduced in 2008, has made it easier for the Internal Revenue Service…
June 28, 2012, 11:05 am
Tell Us What You Think of the Health-Care Ruling
Credit: Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Newscom
The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld most of the health-care overhaul law, a decision that will please many foundations and nonprofit groups that have been working to put the new law into effect.
The decision will also affect many charities that care for patients on Medicaid. The ruling says the federal government could expand the pool of people who are eligible for the federal-state insurance program, but the court limited the government’s ability to penalize states that do not want to participate in the bigger program.
The Chronicle will provide additional coverage of the ruling later today. Meanwhile, please tell us what you think of the decision. How will it affect you or your nonprofit or foundation? Please comment below or send an email to Suzanne Perry.
June 19, 2012, 9:22 am
Washington State National-Service Leader to Head AmeriCorps
William C. Basl, executive director of the Washington Commission for National and Community Service, has been named director of AmeriCorps, the national-service program.
He will succeed John Gomperts, who left to take a job as chief executive of America’s Promise Alliance, a children’s-advocacy network.
Mr. Basl has headed the commission, which manages AmeriCorps programs in the State of Washington, for 18 years. Before that, he founded the Washington Service Corps, a state youth-service program.
Mr. Basl will report to Wendy Spencer, the new head of the Corporation for National and Community Service. He joins AmeriCorps at a time when its future is uncertain because of Congressional budget battles.
See a Chronicle article about those and other challenges facing AmeriCorps.
Send an e-mail to Suzanne Perry.
June 4, 2012, 11:24 am
Obama Committee Pushes Collaborations on Youth Employment
When paying for projects to help young people get educated and find jobs, federal and private grant makers should give priority to projects that involve collaborations between nonprofits and others, says a report issued today by a White House advisory committee.
“Individual nonprofit services can be fragmented and dispersed, with each organization typically serving a limited population with specific interventions,” says the report, drawn up by the White House Council for Community Solutions.
It says the federal government should do more to ensure that local communities have access to good data about young people and get young people involved by, for example, creating an advisory Presidential Youth Working Group. Employers, schools, and community and national-service programs can also strengthen efforts to prepare young people for jobs.
At least one in six people ages 16 to 24…
May 15, 2012, 2:02 pm
5 Experts to Testify at Hearing on IRS Nonprofit Oversight
A House subcommittee has announced that five nonprofit experts will testify at a hearing it has scheduled for Wednesday to examine several issues related to the Internal Revenue Service’s oversight of tax-exempt organizations.
They are Diana Aviv, president of Independent Sector; Roger Colinvaux, an associate law professor at the Catholic University of America;Â Joanne DeStefano, vice president for finance at Cornell University, who will be testifying on behalf of the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO); Bruce Hopkins, a nonprofit lawyer; and Michael Regier, a senior vice president at VHA, a nonprofit hospital cooperative.
Rep. Charles Boustany called the hearing. The Louisiana Republican heads the oversight subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Send an e-mail to Suzanne Perry.
May 9, 2012, 9:55 pm
Congressional Hearing to Examine Nonprofit Tax Issues
A Congressional hearing has been scheduled next week to examine various tax issues affecting nonprofits, including Internal Revenue Service oversight of universities and nonprofit hospitals.
Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., a Louisiana Republican, called the hearing. He told The Chronicle this winter he was concerned the tax agency had not been aggressive enough in monitoring charity abuses.
The event, which will take place May 16 at 10 a.m., will be the first in a series of hearings on tax-exempt organizations planned by the oversight subcommittee of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.
Mr. Boustany, the subcommittee chairman, said in a statement that the hearing would allow nonprofits to weigh in on certain questions he had raised in a letter he sent to the IRS last October.
They include IRS audits of universities in areas including excessive compensation and unrelated …
February 13, 2012, 1:50 pm
Obama Would Give National-Service Budget Small Boost, But End Some Programs
President Obama today proposed increasing the budget for the Corporation for National and Community Service by 1.3 percent next year, to almost $1.1-billion—providing enough money to keep the number of AmeriCorps members at current levels.
In his budget for the 2013 fiscal year, the president said he would also increase spending on the Social Innovation Fund, a grants program to expand effective nonprofit social projects, to $50-million, up from just under $45-million in 2012.
However, the president wants to eliminate two “lower priority” programs that the agency operates—the Volunteer Generation Fund, which provides money for projects to help charities recruit and manage volunteers, and the Nonprofit Capacity Building Fund, which provides grants to organizations to provide training and management help to small and medium-sized charities.
Both of those programs were created …
February 9, 2012, 8:48 am
Prominent Democrat No Longer Up for National-Service Board
President Obama has withdrawn the nomination of a high-profile pick for a seat on the Corporation for National and Community Service board—John Podesta, a prominent Democrat who was President Clinton’s chief of staff and co-chair of Mr. Obama’s transition team.
Mr. Podesta, founder of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with close ties to the White House, was among seven people that the president nominated in June 2010 to fill vacancies on the national-service board. The nominations were approved by a Senate committee in July but have still not been confirmed by the full Senate.
Andrea Purse, vice president for communications at the Center for American Progress, said in a statement: “Like many of Mr. Obama’s other nominees, Mr. Podesta got tired of waiting for the Senate to act and got busy with other projects and asked for his nomination to be withdrawn. 
February 7, 2012, 5:48 pm
Preserving Charity Tax Breaks Won’t Be Main Goal of Nonprofit Coalition
Independent Sector, a coalition of nonprofits and foundations that has waged a vigorous campaign against proposals to limit the charitable deduction for wealthy people, has now decided to devote more attention to other aspects of budget and tax policy that could harm poor people.
Critics have accused Independent Sector and other nonprofit advocates of spending a disproportionate amount of energy protecting the charitable tax break, given other critical issues facing the nation, especially those affecting vulnerable people.
Diana Aviv, the group’s chief executive, said Independent Sector’s board “sympathized with that point of view.” It adopted a series of “guiding principles” last week, saying it plans to promote policies to cut the nation’s deficit and overhaul the tax code that do not “exacerbate income inequality or increase poverty.”
The principles, which were sent to the or…
February 3, 2012, 10:48 am
‘Buffett Rule’ Tax Bill Would Preserve Charitable Deduction
Senate Democrats have introduced legislation to require the richest Americans to pay a minimum share of their income in taxes, but allow them to continue claiming a deduction for charitable giving.
The bill, introduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, aims to put into effect the so-called “Buffett Rule” that was championed by President Obama in his State of the Union address.
It would require taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of more than $2-million, including capital gains and dividends, to pay at least 30 percent in federal taxes. The minimum tax would be phased in for people earning more than $1-million but less than $2-million under a formula that is spelled out in the legislation.
Donors would be able to deduct their charitable gifts from their adjusted gross incomes to lower their tax bills, thus preserving a giving incentive that has been fiercely defended …
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