The IRS announced the standard mileage rates for 2015. , oops, 2016. You can find the official announcement in Notice 2016-01.
According to the IRS comments in IR-2015-137: (more…)
Standard mileage rates for 2016
Jim Ulvog
“No one wants to be a beggar for life” – “Poverty, Inc.”
Poverty, Inc. is a documentary from a group by the same name. You can see the trailer at those links.
The way we, that is, the developed world, are doing international development is broken. One comment in the movie from an economist in Africa tells the story: emergency relief is the standard model used for decades to end poverty and suffering.
That isn’t working.
As another speaker says:
“No one wants to be a beggar for life”
I read two reviews of the movie, one from a center-left perspective and one from a center-right perspective. Both praise the movie and share in the criticism of big aid.
The documentary won several awards at a libertarian film festival and then won best documentary at a progressive film festival. Imagine that!
Guess which of the following two columnists made this comment?
It’s almost like anybody with a populist outlook and, you know, a brain between their ears and a heart between their shoulders, has got to look at our current system of international development and aid and say there’s something deeply wrong.
Journalist returns call to scammer who claimed to be from the IRS. Entertainment and laughter follows.
Most people hang up on robocalls from charities. If there is a real person, I ask them to go into their spiel and then set the phone down, letting the caller waste a minute or two of their time.
William P. Barrett, writing at New To Seattle, actually takes those calls. He then dissects the charity’s financial statements showing the minimal amount of charity taking place in some organizations.
To the repeat offenders he awards the title of “America’s Stupidest Charities.”
You probably know scammers have a new scheme of falsely claiming to be from the IRS. Their spiel is you’re just about to be arrested for failing to pay back taxes, the police are on the way to your home, but you can avoid going to jail today by settling up right now by sending money on a prepaid debit card or wire transfer.
Mr. Barrett called back to the number provided in a robocall. The person answering spoke poor English and sounded like he was calling from a boiler room.
He describes the call in his post, Scammers invoking the IRS inundate Seattle.
How did that conversation go? Quite entertainingly.
Here’s a new scam you may not have heard about: e-mail from your boss telling you to wire some money to a ministry partner right away
Let’s say you are the controller in the finance office. Let’s say your boss sends you an email telling you to wire some money to a new organization in the field that he just met because they have the ability to do something great and they need the funds to seize the opportunity right now. Today. Oh, the amount is within budget and he gives you the routing information for the wire. Email is signed using your boss’ nickname and based on a quick glance, the e-mail address is legit.
You quickly send the wire, right?
California Attorney General sues charity and their auditor over RRF-1 filing and 990
Sometimes there is a perception in the charity community that those pesky filings with the charity regulators are no big deal. Sometimes board members don’t pay much attention to the 990.
Well, last week the California AG sued one charity in the state for allegedly misleading information in the RRF-1. That is a simple one-page form that has only two numbers: total revenue and total assets. The AG claims the 990s have misleading information in them.
How can the AG of a state sue over a tax return filed with the federal government? Here is the path they take. They allege the one page RFF-1 was misleading because attached to the RRF-1 is the federal 990, which is where they find the information that they consider to be misleading. That gives the state grounds to sue.
The sobering lesson for CPAs who serve the charity community is the AG also sued the CPA firm. In addition, they sued the audit partner personally.
If your NPO does work overseas, might be worth pondering the risks again
If your ministry recruits staff and sends them overseas to carry out your programs, you might want to spend a bit more time thinking about the risks your staff face.
A court ruling in Norway found a charity liable for the physical injuries, psychological harm, and aftercare of a staffer who was kidnapped in Kenya and held four days before being rescued. The staffer was shot in the leg. The incident understandably left this staffer with post-traumatic stress disorder. Another staffer was killed.
The court noted the organization treated this and other staff persons as troublemakers because they complained internally about the lack of aftercare.
The court found the Norwegian Refugee Counsel guilty of gross negligence and liable for damages equal to US$500,000. The court also criticized the follow-on security investigation and found that NRC improperly accessed the risks that staff faced. The court noted other staff persons were upset with their aftercare.
The underside of the charity world
Bad stuff is everywhere. Call it evil if you wish. Or simply sin.
The underside of the charity world needs to be addressed and dealt with. Here are two articles, one secular and one spiritual, on how to deal with bad stuff.
Also a general article on complexity. I have been holding all three articles for a few months. Time to post them.
On dealing with bad stuff
7/21 – New York Times – Denver Church’s Security Efforts Highlight New Reality – Check out the five-minute video. It is superb.
“How to get ready for a financial audit”
The website XPastor discussed How to Get Ready for a Financial Audit. Figuring out how to get going on an audit for the first time is a challenge. Main points from a CPA who is now an executive pastor:
Hire an audit firm
This is a board responsibility. Staff helps but it needs to be driven by the board with the real decision made there.
Meet with the auditors before the audit
Ideas on how to *not* mess up your pastor’s taxes
Elaine Sommerville, CPA, explains The Two Most Confusing Aspects of Classifying Your Minister for Tax Purposes at Church Law & Tax.
A frequent source of confusion for handling ministers’compensation is Social Security and Medicare taxes. Federal law defines ministers of the gospel as being subject to the Employed Contributions Act (SECA) instead of the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), which is what all of us are most familiar with. The SECA rules usually come into play for self-employed people.
FASB moves lease standard to final draft
By a 6-1 vote, on 11/11/15 FASB authorized their staff to prepare the final draft of the lease standard. When the final draft is ready, it will be routed to the board members for a final, written vote.
Final standard is expected in early 2016.
Looking for ways to beef up internal controls in a small organization?
Small charities usually cannot afford enough staff to put in place great internal controls. If you want a few ideas on how to make modest improvements at low cost, Charles Hall suggests How to Lessen Segregation of Duties Problems in Two Easy Steps.
Second set of eyes on bank statements
FASB splits revision of NPO accounting into two workstreams
On October 28, 2015, FASB voted to split in two the exposure draft to overhaul presentation of not-for-profit financial statements. You can see their summary of the decision here, although that appears to be a dynamic link and the discussion will likely move soon. Extract of minutes on this issue on can be found here. That appears to be a link that will be in place a long time.
Reason for breaking this in two is that some components of the exposure draft received serious pushback. Those items will be considered in more detail and addressed at a later, yet-to-be-determined date.
The less contentious items will move forward “in the near term.” One article I read, but for which I don’t know how to provide a link, said FASB hopes to have what they call workstream one finished in mid-2016.
Summary of feedback on exposure draft to overhaul financial reporting by nonprofit organizations
The AICPA has summarized the FASB’s Preliminary Analysis of the Comment Letters on the Not-for-Profit Financial Statement Exposure Draft .
I realize I’m going at this backward, what with commenting on the feedback before I’ve described the content of the exposure draft, but here goes….
To sort through the question of how to share economic and health progress with everyone, check out a book from the winner of this year’s Nobel award in economics
Why have we seen such dramatic improvement in average wealth and average life expectancy everywhere in the last 100 or 200 years? What has led to a radical reduction in the number of people living in dirt-eating poverty in the last 50 years?
Over the last few years I have focused a lot of my reading on economics and history trying to figure out the answers to those questions. Why?
If we figure out the answer to those questions we can continue in the same direction. If we sort out how we got here, we can share that strategy with those who have not shared in the progress. If you want a different phrasing, we can radically narrow economic inequality within countries and between countries if we can answer those questions. We can help get even more people out of dirt-eating poverty.
I think those goals are in the back of the mind for most readers of this blog.
My brief blogging break is over
I have not been posting much lately, as you likely noticed.
Took a week of vacation for our fourth visit to North Dakota. Worked a week in the office on several deadlines. Then took another week of vacation in San Diego. Considering the time it takes to get ready for vacation, I have not had much time for blogging for about four weeks now.
In addition, I’ve been on a fairly stringent news diet for three weeks. Not a complete fast, just a diet. That has also been quite refreshing. I am still quite aware the world is falling apart even through I don’t know much of the current details.
I’m back in the office now so can get back into my routine. Plan to resume blogging at my regular pace.
So, stay tuned!