thanks for your quick responses pals and critter! and critter, thanks for the treasurer's forms....very helpful.
i beleive our filing fee is $10 or so. i owned a biz a few years back and inc'd so i'm all for it. i've introduced the idea of individual protection to our officers and was literally laughed at. some would like to think bad things like pto's being sued never happens...but the idea that if we don't do it now then it's more work later will definitely get some attention! being a 1st year everything we've been doing more networking and form creating than anything. the idea of more paperwork would terrify them!! are ther any real reasons we wouldn't want to?
i'll be awaiting everyone's brilliance [img]smile.gif[/img]
We are completing the paperwork for incorporation in Michigan (only $20). The main reason we are incorporating is the protection it provides to the members and officers. I am not a lawyer, but...as I understand it, incorporation limits the liability to the PTO itself - if the PTO were sued, the members'/officers' individual assets are protected - only the assets of the PTO would be at stake. Anyone care to confirm?
One more quick comment, when we went to incorporate it was denied at first because we use our school name it our groups name. all we had to do was get approval from the dept. of eduaction in NY, which required a letter from our principal/superintendent. So if your school name is in your groups name check first !!
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
Hi it's gonna be okay- We have been in the process of going tax exempt/incorporating for the last two months. the paper work is just about complete. What i learned from this forum and from the IRS is that if there is even a slight chance that you will want to incorporate then do it first. If you decide after filing the tax exemption you lose everything you already accomplished (the filing fee , for us it was 500.00, your tax number, etc.) So that ended up being the deciding factor in us questioning whether to do it or not. It can't hurt, it cost us 100.00 to incorporate in NY. Good luck !
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
we're a 1st year charter school and we started forming our pto in dec. every family seems to be from a different school. some have never had a pto...what a nightmare of a year. our bylaws are finally written and miraculously our central office has agreed to let us go non-profit. now i have to check with the officers and decide whether we inc. or not. i'm for it but there are those who just want to sell candy bars and take the kids to the amusement park. we can do both but this will be a difficult sell. has anyone gone nonprofit and not inc'd? why? and other than the obvious protections what are the emotional benefits i can pitch?
