Earlier this week the IRS issued guidance (http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=225705,00.html) providing relief to small charities who had missed the deadline to file Form 990-N or Form 990-EZ for the past three years. Under this voluntary compliance program, small charities following the procedures announced by the IRS may be able to maintain their charitable status if they file the form prior to October 15th, complete a checklist and pay a small fee (between $100-$500). This guidance may be welcome news to some of your smaller grantees who missed their filing deadlines.

In issuing the guidance, the IRS also posted a list (http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=225889,00.html) on its website of organizations at risk of automatic loss of their tax exempt status due to failure to file any of the Form 990 series (Form 990-N, Form 990-EZ, Form 990, Form 990-PF) as required. We recommend that you take this opportunity to make sure the IRS does not have your community foundation on the list. Check for your affiliated entities as well. For example, you may want to verify that trusts that you may have kept open in anticipation of any lingering testamentary gifts, community foundation affiliates that have incorporated and obtained charitable status, or supporting organizations that you established are not on the list. While you are not likely to find a problem, it doesn't hurt to verify that fact on the publicly available list. Note that the IRS includes some warnings about its list. In particular they state: "The list may be incomplete, as certain organizations may be at risk even though their names do not appear. In addition, the list may include organizations that were required to file Form 990 or Form 990-PF and are not eligible for the relief program, and organizations whose filing dates have not yet occurred." While the list may not be perfect, it will give you a good idea of what the IRS records show.

For more information on the program and for the at risk list see: http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=225702,00.html