nonprofit tax

Repost: 2018 nonprofit risk alert is available. New edition adds discussion on valuation of GIK as rebuttal to California AG.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Update:  This is a repost of an article on June 11, 2018. As I mentioned last summer, some newly added comments in this risk alert entered heavily into the decision by an Administrative Law Judge finding the charities complied with GAAP.

Some particular items of note for those who enjoy deep inside-baseball tidbits from the accounting world: 

  • discussion of GIK, especially paragraph .53 was added this year,
  • discussion in paragraphs .53 and .176 are directly responsive to the AG’s argument,
  • there is an overlap of ARL staffing with the R&D sector & auditors of that sector, and
  • the hard-fought, everybody-does-it-so-that-makes-it-right, spend-$475K-to-fight-the-IRS position on mebendazole has changed from the previously no-good, can’t-rely-on-it, non-representational pricing guide from five years ago now being the AICPA recommended standard for pricing.

So, here are some on-point comments from last summer with a few minor updates:

 

The AICPA has released the 2018 edition of Not-for-Profit Entities Industry Developments.

If you are a CPA serving the not-for-profit community, you need to read this document each year. It provides a survey of the accounting and auditing issues affecting the nonprofit world.

If you are an auditor, there are several other risk alerts you ought to be reading every year.

If you are working for a nonprofit, these alerts would give you a good survey of accounting issues in general and the audit issues your CPA will be dealing with this year.

Valuation of Gifts in Kind

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Jim Ulvog

Not-for-profit risk alert for 2017 is available

Cover of 2017 risk alert from the AICPA, used under fair use since I’m urging you to buy their product.

The 2017 risk alert for non-profits is available from the AICPA.

Highlighted updates this year include:

  • AUS 2016-14 – New financial statement presentation
  • ASU 2016-02 – Leases
  • SAS 132 – Going concern

If you don’t feel overwhelmed, you haven’t been paying close enough attention to recent pronouncements. If so, the risk alert will help you catch up.

If you are feeling overwhelmed, the risk alert is a great first step in getting comfortable.

Jim Ulvog

“Top 10 questions that Ministers, Missionaries, and Church Treasurers Ask Tax Preparers”

Corey Pfaffe, CPA, provides answers to those top 10 questions at MinistryCPA.

The questions, with links to each answer, can be found here.

You can download a superb 12 page PDF of the full set of answers here.

If you are a pastor, missionary, church treasurer, or on the finance staff of a charity, I recommend you check out Prof. Pfaffe’s superb explanations. Get professional advice to apply the information to your situation or if you need to go beyond the very straightforward answers.

There is a bonus question: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

3 more Q&As on a church paying for services – do you see a pattern of answers saying payments are normally taxable and typically to an employee?

If you do a bit of research on paying people being compensation or whether to treat them as employee or independent contractor, you will see an obvious trend in the discussions.  

If someone is providing services to your church and you pay them, there is usually going to be some taxable income.  It is fairly unusual for those services to be in the category of independent contractor.  

Corey Pfaffe has three more Q&A discussions posted at MinistryCPA blog.  All deal with whether amounts paid to a person for services are taxable and whether such payments should be reported on a W-2 as an employee or on a 1099 as an independent contractor: (more…)

Jim Ulvog