Class Title: Beware of the New 990: What you Don't Know Can Hurt You!
Class Format: This is a recording of a 90-minute, interactive session held via conference call on October 17, 2008. Since we recorded the class, you can listen to it in the convenience of your home or office.
To take this class, add it to your cart, provide your credit card information, and go through the checkout process. Immediately on registering you will automatically be taken to a classroom page where you will download the class materials and listen to the class via streaming audio from your web browser. The controls on the player enable you to listen to, or re-listen to, any part of the class. You may log out and come back at a later time or times time within 90 days from the date you registered for the class. In other words, you can decide when to listen to a class, even breaking it over over different days. Even better, you replay portions that you'd like to re-hear.
As soon as you register, you will also be sent emails providing you with your username and password, in case you need to log in again, good for 90 days. You'll also receive an electronic receipt, in case you need it for reimbursement or for tax purposes.
Class Description: The Form 990 is the IRS filing required of most U.S. nonprofits. It has been significantly amended. In addition to the "core" portion that must be filled out by all organizations, there are now numerous schedules that may be required, depending on the organization and operation of the particular nonprofit. It should be noted that the instructions have only recently been issued in final form. The new form will be required for large organizations beginning this year (reporting for 2008, filed in 2009), with a phase-in for most nonprofits over the next two years.
Because of the significant changes and the increased complexity, any organization that does not know what is required by the new form might find itself either without the information needed to complete it, or in a position where its answers might be found by potential contributors as well as the IRS itself, to have an adverse impact on the organization.
Some of the issues covered:
1. What organizations must file using the form?
2. Who needs to be involved in the preparation and review of the form?
3. Why the 990 is too important to be left to the accountants?
4. Does the IRS have a role in corporate governance?
5. What is an independent director; do your directors need to be independent?
6. Is there a legally mandated “correct” answer to the questions being asked?
7. Does your organization need to adopt new policies?
a. Conflicts of interest policy
b. Whistleblower policy
c. Record Retention and Destruction policy
8. The impact of various fundraising methods.
9. What compensation issues are addressed by the form?
10. The impact of having related organizations.
Do You Have a Group? Class registration is for you only* with the following exception: If you wish to convene a group to physically gather around a single PC to listen to the class recording at a single session, you may do so at no additional charge. With the money you'll save, you can spring for pizza for everybody!
*Please note that it is impermissible to share your individual log-in username and password with others without express permission from CharityChannel.
About the Instructor, Lisa A. Runquist
Lisa A. Runquist is a principal in the law firm of Runquist & Associates, with offices in Los Angeles, California. Ms. Runquist has over 30 years experience as a transactional lawyer emphasizing nonprofit organizations. She is AV-rated (highest rating given to lawyers by Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory). In 1999 she was the first winner of the Outstanding Lawyer award, which is a Nonprofit Lawyers Award presented by the American Bar Association's Business Law Section.
She is a member and former chair of the State Bar of California Nonprofit Organizations Committee; a member of ABA-Tax Law Section Exempt Organizations Committee, and chair/former chair of various of its subcommittees; a member and former chair of the ABA-BLS Committee on Nonprofit Corporations, and member of the Corporate Laws Committee. She is on the subcommittee responsible to update the Model Nonprofit Corporation Act. She serves on the Advisory Board of The Exempt Organization Tax Review, on the Advisory Board of California State University, Los Angeles, Continuing Education Accounting and Taxation Programs, and as the ABA-BLS Liaison to the ALI/ABA Principles of the Law of Nonprofit Organizations Project. She was the ABA Advisor to the NCCUSL Committee to Amend the Uniform Unincorporated Association Act (just finalized), and is now an ABA Section Advisor to the NCCUSL Drafting Committee on the Regulation of Charities.
Ms. Runquist is the author of numerous publications on nonprofit corporations and religious organizations, most recently, The ABC’s of Nonprofits, American Bar Association, Business Law Section, 2005, and editor of Nonprofit Resources , published in 2007. She is currently finalizing the Guidebook to Representing Religious Organizations, which will be released in early 2009. She wrote three chapters in Nonprofit Governance: The Executive's Guide, Second Edition, ABA/ BLS, 2002 - Basic Corporate And Tax Aspects of Religious Organizations, and co author of Nonprofit Debt Securities And State Regulation and Volunteer Protection Act of 1997 - An Imperfect Solution . She also wrote and updates on an annual basis Chapter 18, Corporate Changes, Advising California Nonprofit Corporations, Continuing Education of the Bar. Other writings include "Chapter 23, Public Benefit, Mutual Benefit, and Religious Corporations," California Transactions Forms, BancroftWhitney, 1996; "A Job Description for Directors," Business Law Today, Vol.4, No 2, Nov/Dec 1994; "Responsibilities and Duties of a Director of a Nonprofit Organization," Maxwell-MacMillan Charitable Giving and Solicitation Service, 1991; Co-author "The Government's Role in the Purification of Religious Organizations," Pepperdine L. Rev., 1980.