To Our Fellow AMC Institute Members:

We need your help with an issue that will affect all AMC owners and nonprofits. It concerns the IRS’ recently released draft Form 990 that nonprofits will have to file beginning in 2009.  The IRS has, in addition to numerous other changes, proposed 15 separate schedules that many nonprofits will have to complete if they are involved in specific activities, including but not limited to political and international programs.  We are particularly concerned with the burden this new process will place on AMC clients with budgets under one million dollars.

We are writing to alert you to this issue, offer resources for more information, and to ask that you support a campaign to extend the comment period and express concerns associated with the burden these schedules could pose for AMC clients.

The draft Form 990 was released on June 14 and the IRS is now accepting comments on the core form and schedules for 90 days, or until September 14, 2007. Your response to the proposed core form and schedule by that deadline is essential.

The AMC Institute Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Task Force is working closely with Jim Clarke, ASAE’s senior vice president of public policy, on this issue. ASAE has sent a preliminary response to the IRS and will send a detailed one next month. The recent AMC Institute program in Chicago included a panel discussion on the issue and ASAE held a similar special program at the annual meeting. As was explained in both sessions, without your help and a large, loud response from nonprofits to the IRS, we will have to live for many years with a process that could be onerous and expensive.

The plan stands that AMC Institute will draft a response to IRS concerning key AMC Owner issues that we will share with our members by September 5.  This will allow enough time for AMC Institute members to draft their own IRS response with portions of  the AMC Institute’s letter. 

ACTION:  If you have read through the draft Form 990 and the multiple accompanying schedules and have identified other significant areas that you want to make sure AMC Institute includes in the IRS response letter, please send your feedback to Andrea Bower (abower@amcinstitute.org) at Headquarters no later than Friday, August 24th.  Andrea will share all comments with  us and the other members of the Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Task Force.

For a copy of the core form and schedules, follow this link:

http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=171213,00.html

Regards,

Bob McLean and Hugh Webster

PS: Remember that comments after September 14 will NOT be accepted by IRS, so send in your comments before the deadline.