I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it with my own ears, but I picked up our PTA's tax forms from the accountant doing our taxes for us, and he had the nerve to say, " You know, most PTA's/PTO's are just a bunch of moms baking stuff. I don't know why you even bother filing taxes. It's a waste of money in my opinion."
My jaw dropped to the floor.
Our taxes were due on November 15th and he didn't have them ready, so he had filed for an extension and just gotten them to me today. Maybe he was mad at us because we were calling him weekly wondering if our tax returns were ready to be picked up.
Of course, I gave him a quick course in what parent groups do (took at least 15 minutes of his time with that), then told him that we legally had to file our tax returns or could lose our 501C3 status. He laughed and said, "most groups don't bother filing." I really told him what I thought about his attitude about parent groups! Hey, we are a business, too. I couldn't believe his attitude!
Our group handles more than $75,000 per year. We want to keep our non-profit status. I told him that we would never do business with him again! He acted insulted by that! Are there REALLY parent groups out there that don't bother with filing the tax reports?