Deadline extended for filing report on cash held overseas – penalties for not filing – part 3

Previously discussed the FBAR report and additional background on how easy it is for an NPO with overseas activity to generate a requirement to file the report.  Will get back to the extended deadline, but need to look at the downside of not filing.

Penalties

This is where things get ugly. The FBAR report says the penalty for a person who fails to properly file is a civil penalty up to $10,000. This applies to organizations also.  If there is reasonable cause, then no penalty will be imposed.

It gets worse.

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Jim Ulvog

Deadline extended for filing report on cash held overseas –more background on implications of FBAR reporting – part 2

This series of posts is discussion the FBAR in general and an extension of the deadline to file the reports from 2009 and earlier. It is important to note the deadline for filing the 2010 reports is still June 30, 2011. Not much time left for those reports.

Previously discussed the filing requirements for the FBAR report and how that would fit into the operations of an NPO with overseas activities.

How does this get messy for a mission organization?

How else could the usual functioning of a foreign mission organization create filing requirements? Let’s say you have missionaries located in the field who have a local bank account. While they likely are drawing a very modest salary, the situation could easily develop where staff could cross that $10,000 cutoff in their account and have to file a report. Merely send someone funds to buy a vehicle, for example. Your program manager and assistant manager sign on the account used for the office expenses, so they each have a personal filing requirement.

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Jim Ulvog

Deadline extended for filing report on cash held overseas – that FBAR report applies to NPO’s – part 1

Federal law requires filing a report with the Treasury Department when you have foreign bank accounts with balances over a certain amount. This law applies to NPOs.

Deadline for filing all of the past reports has been extended by the IRS.

How can this be an issue in the nonprofit community? If you have field programs and a local bank account to pay bills then this requirement could kick in. It is my personal perception there may be some mission organizations that have a filing requirement but are not doing what they need to do.

I will give a little background, explain why this is an issue for the nonprofit community, and then describe the extended deadline.

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Jim Ulvog

How have contributions of ECFA members fared during the recession?

ECFA has analyzed the giving of their members who renewed membership in the last six months. Looking at members with year-ends between April and September 2010 and comparing that to those member’s revenue from three years earlier produced some encouraging information.

This would include organizations who have been members at least three years, so there’s data for comparison. Keep in mind this would be for NPOs whose fiscal year-end dates were in the middle part of 2010.

That said, here is the summary:

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Jim Ulvog

Slim relief for getting exemption back after automatic revocation for very small organizations

As discussed here, not filing any returns with the IRS for three years now results in automatic revocation of exempt status. This is a very bad place to be. Without exempt status an organization cannot accept deductible contributions, would have to file an 1120 income tax form, and would not be able to do other things that only exempt organizations can do.

If you get in this situation there is no appeal or reversal. Your organization will have to apply for exempt status from scratch. The whole 1023 thing.

The IRS announced some special rules, called transition relief, for very small organizations.

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Jim Ulvog

Prescriptions to gain balance in your life that go beyond ‘just try harder’

We all need to gain balance in our lives. Get some ideas on how in Dr. Richard Swenson’s book In Search of Balance. (full disclosure – I am not compensated for the Amazon link.)

From my Amazon review:

More and more of everything faster and faster is the phrase Dr. Swenson uses to describe life today.

Eight words that describe all aspects of our world. More and more – a rapidly increasing volume and quality and intensity.  Of everything – all aspects of our life, such as technology, money, every area of knowledge, experiences, entertainment, great books we should read, quality of consumer goods.  Faster and faster – the rate of change is accelerating.

Nobody reading this review needs to be told your life is out of balance. With a moment of reflection we all realize that. That we don’t have a spare moment to reflect is the crux of the problem.

Instead of us just trying harder, or working smarter, or just ‘getting it together’, he provides a series of prescriptions on how to gain equilibrium in life.

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Jim Ulvog

How’s this for creativity? Teaching accounting, auditing, and IT through a murder mystery?

I am enjoying the idea of teaching accounting or economics or other complex stuff through some creative method. Have had several posts on the topic. So intrigued by the idea that I’ve started producing cartoons. (See my other blog, once upon internal control.)

How’s this for an idea? Writing a full-length murder mystery novel with the goal of teaching auditing, taxes, IT and forensic accounting. That has been the approach of Prof. Larry Crumbley. In his spare time he has written 13 educational novels. Started back in 1988.

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Jim Ulvog

Free book offer for pastors of local churches

I would like to provide a complementary copy of my book Once Upon Internal Control to pastors of local churches. This short fable is the basis for the cartoons you see on my other blog.

Update:  This book is now available on Amazon for $0.99USD. 

Offer good for delivery in U.S. only, effective December 5, 2011.  Free offer expired on December 31, 2011.

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Jim Ulvog

IRS publishes list of NPOs whose exemptions were automatically revoked

Congressional law says that any NPO not filing required 990 returns with the IRS for three consecutive years will automatically lose tax-exempt status. This is called automatic revocation. The first time the three-year rolling requirement came into play was for years ending December 31, 2009 with the filing deadline of May 15, 2010.

On June 8, 2011, the IRS published the first list of organizations subject to automatic revocation.

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Jim Ulvog

Feature length cartoon up – discussion of bank reconciliations and offering count in a local church

Some short scenes have been combined into a 9 minute cartoon along with an intro and extro. The first of several feature-length cartoons is available on my other blog, Once Upon Internal Control. This one discusses some creative internal controls over cash and a few ideas on how to maintain security over the offering until it is counted by the count team. More to follow!

Cartoon can be found at:

Once Upon Internal Control – part 1

 

Jim Ulvog

Radical cost reductions in technology – illustration from external hard drives

Storage costs are about zero.

Got to thinking about the cost of storing data on external hard drives. Did a few calculations to look at the radical change in costs over the last few years. Used my actual purchases and listings today at Amazon. Wow.

Here are the costs per gigabyte of storage for the newer portable hard drive (2 of ‘em are about the size of a paperback book) and for the larger externally powered ones (more the size of a thick hardback): (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Conclusion to the tale of Southside Community Church – cartoon #4 posted

 Posted at Once Upon Internal Control: The exit interview with the reporter who was investigating reports of extravagant spending. Final cartoon in the tale of the church that did internal controls well can be found here.

All four cartoons plus the intro will be rolled into a feature cartoon.

Jim Ulvog