Thank you Pals and Critter. Because we are under the "$25,000 receipts mark", we will be filing the 990N (e-postcard). I spoke with the IRS about what we would need to include after our potential advance ruling period (we are in the process of filling out Form 1023) of 5 years since we won't file the 990/990EZ, and she said we would be pulling info from our actual transaction records. I may stay on with the PTO to see this process through, perhaps as a co-chair to the treasurer. One of my goals is to leave the group with a solid foundation for going forward and not losing the (hopeful) 501C3 status.
Thanks for all of the help along the way. We continue............
Our 5-year advance ruling period ended this past fall. I was treasurer the year we filed the 501c3 application, and coincidentally treasurer again when the 5yrs had passed. So I got to close the loop, so to speak, and file the Form 8367 (I think that was its number) last fall. The #1 most important information you need to do the 8367 is ALL your 990/990EZ's for the 5 years.
If you're approaching the 5-year mark, and you're not exactly sure where the old 990/990EZ's are, start looking. You'll need to have the info from those forms to do the 8367 and get your definitive ruling. I had to recreate the information for one year from our transaction records. I know we filed the 990EZ, but couldn't find a copy anywhere (tip: give a copy to your principal, plus put one in your PTO files). Once the form 8367 was filed, we got our definitive ruling from the IRS within a couple weeks.
If I were doing it all over again, I would still go with the advanced ruling. At the time we applied for the 501c3, our PTO's historical records weren't necessarily complete. I think it would have taken far more time to try to get a handle on our history than it would have been worth. Since we didn't have a particular reason to need to establish our charitable status going back in time, we started by incorporating the PTO, and then filed for 501c3 for our "new" PTO.
I am actually in the process of doing our 5 year paper work, when we applied the IRS put us in the advance ruling. As far as what is on the paperwork we are doing now to follow up the five years it appears the info will be basically coming from our 990's we had filed each year.
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
I spoke with an IRS agent this afternoon and explained our "Old PTO" vs. "Newly Incorporated PTO" situation. She said I could use the history of the old PTO to file for a definitive ruling or I could use the clean slate approach (as if our group never existed) and file for an advance ruling using projected info for the newly incorporated group. She actually suggested the definitive ruling using past years' info (though I am not sure I can gather that together properly). This didn't seem right based on all of the discussion here about how the newly incorporated group is a brand new group with no history. I didn't have time to call back to run this by another agent (I was on hold for 45 minutes today!!) but will do so tomorrow. In the meantime, does anyone want to comment? Has anyone received an "advance ruling" and are now approaching the end of their 5 year "test" period? What did you have to do during the 5 years in terms of reporting? Does an advance ruling affect the state status as a non profit? With the new e-postcard filing (for our $ size group), is that all I would need to file? I feel that if I go for the advance ruling, I should remain responsible for seeing this process through to the definitive ruling. I will run all this by a new agent when I call, but information beforehand always helps! Some of these questions may have shown up in previous posts, but I thought I'd ask again here! Thanks!!
