Louis E. Michelson, A Professional Corporation

.

Are all the policies and practices described in Part VI required by the Internal Revenue Code? If not, what happens if an organization reports that it does not have such policies in place?

In general, the policies and practices described in Part VI are not required by the Internal Revenue Code. However, organizations are required by the Code to make publicly available some of the items described in Question 18 of Part VI. This includes the Forms 990 of all organizations for their three most recent tax years; the Form 1023 or 1024 of all organizations that filed such forms on or after July 15, 1987, or had a copy on such date; and the Forms 990-T of a section 501(c)(3) organization for its three most recent tax years, if such forms were filed after August 17, 2006. The IRS will use the information reported in Part VI, along with other information reported on the form, to assess noncompliance and the risk of noncompliance with federal tax law for individual organizations and across the broader exempt sector.

If an organization adopted a policy or practice after the close of its tax year but before it filed the Form 990 for such year, may it report that it had such policy or practice in place for purposes of answering Part VI?

In most instances, the instructions to the Part VI questions state the specific time or period to be used to answer a particular question. For example, Question 12a asks whether as of the end of the organization’s tax year it had a written conflict of interest policy. An organization that did not have a written conflict of interest policy in place on such date must answer no. If that same organization adopted a written policy after the close of the tax year but before it filed its return, it may describe doing so in Schedule O. If the instructions to a particular question do not provide a specific time or period to be used to answer the question, the organization may take into account practices undertaken after the close of the tax year in its response to that question (e.g., Question 12b regarding whether certain persons are required to disclose potential conflicts). Question 10 regarding whether the organization provided a copy of the Form 990 to its governing body before filing the form, and the process (if any) used by the organization to review the form, necessarily involves activity conducted after the close of the tax year.

Can our organization answer Yes to a question about having a policy if a committee of the board, rather than the board itself, adopted the policy, and was authorized to do so?

Yes. The organization may answer Yes to any question in Section B of Part VI that asks whether the organization has a particular policy if the organization’s governing body (or a committee of the board, if the board delegated authority to that committee to adopt the policy) adopted the policy by the end of its tax year.