Our town's school board put a limitation on our group. We can only do ONE major fundraiser a year as a PTO. HOWEVER, we have found a little "loophole" that allows us to do more for a specific project (IE. raising money for one classes field trip or building a playground). While we do other events during the year that raise funds (like bookfairs, beach parties, t-shirt sales, etc.), we only have the one big fundraiser that sets our limits for the year.

I don't believe there is a limit, per say, except for wanting to avoid taxes, filing, etc. However, the more you do, you risk the chance of being perceived as always wanting money from the parents. I preferred to have 2 major fundraisers during the year. If one made our goal, then I only had the one. However, during the course of the year, some of our events that we had (bagel sales, tshirt sales, holiday sale, fun fair) we knew we would profit something, but didn't count on a lot coming in. However, those were never perceived by the parents as being fundraisers.

Just look at the "big picture" when planning your year and how it will be run to obtain your budgeted income for the year. With a negative perception from parents, that will impact their participation in the fundraisers themselves and may spill over into your volunteer pool.

One another note - many parent groups do pay sales taxes. PTA's / PTO's are non-profit businesses. Paying sales tax is a routine business function, although you certainly want to minimize the amount. For our elementary PTO, they picked the two big taxable events each year to claim as their exempt events. But, for example, we sold T-shirts (an item subject to sales tax) throughout the year. We dutifully filed the proper form and remitted our portion of sales tax to our state comptroller at the specified time each year. It's not a big deal.

There are no general rules or IRS rules that restrict the number of fundraisers a parent group might hold. However rules at other levels might apply.

If you are are approved as a tax exempt entity in your state, there may be state rules regarding how many fundraisers you can hold that qualify for the sales tax exemption. For instance, in Texas we are limited to two fundraisers on which no sales tax must be paid. But that varies from state to state. Some states may have no limits at all.

But keep in mind - not all fundraisers are taxable to begin with. For instance, here in our state if an organization held a spaghetti dinner where volunteers cooked and served the food themselves - those food sales are not taxable. Admission fees probably aren't. But t-shirt sales and re-sale of food, like candy bars or purchased pizza, would be.

The other possibility - which has nothing to do with taxes - might be policy at your campus or district level. Our district enforces a policy that each elementary can only have two big sales type fundraisers per year (cookie dough, gift wrap, magazines) - regardless who owns the fundraisers. There may be other activities, but they don't want the kids used as a sales force over and over.

I was wondering if anyone knows if there is a limit on the number of fundraisers the pto can do in a school year? I have someone telling me that we can only do 2 fundraisers a year, and that if we do more, we become taxable. I have gone on the irs website, and could not find anything that said yes or no. If anyone can help with this, I would greatly appreciate it.