We are a 501 (c) 7: A social club … organized for pleasure, recreation, and other similar purposes.
Please may we put to bed the conversation about making TEAE into a 501 (C) 3.
We do not qualify according to the IRS rules.
The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals.
IRS: Exempt organization type
Further
To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3),
IRS: Exemption trequirements
We are none of these things.
Any other car club that is a 501(c)3 is so most likely because they have members able to support approved purposes, most likely educational – e.g. volunteering to teach British car maintenance at a local high school — or because of some fund raising for a different cause.
Support for a local entity is not likely given our widely dispersed group.
Most importantly, we are putting the cart before the horse!
If we are looking into this so people can give us money, we are missing the purpose of a charitable organization.
Instead of looking for ways to make it easy for people to give us money, we need to look for ways to support charitable causes, or at the very least support young people getting into old cars. Then if we find that we are doing some good things, we can reconsider whether reclassifying our tax status makes sense.
Posted by Kerch McConlogue
2/7/2024
Please add comments below
Hi, Kerch. Thanks, as always, for your e-mail regarding 501(C)(3) qualifications,
i would like to briefly point out that yes, at present, we would not according to IRS requirements qualify. However, the fundamental question remains, do we want to?
After completing the IRS paperwork for renewal for SLO Rolling, a chapter of the National Volvo Club of America, we are compliant for 501(C)(3) status on the basis of our charitable work (providing $1,000 scholarships to the auto tech program at a local community college and educational as we offer workshops and sessions on various repair/maintenance at our annual meeting and festival which is attended by over 200 cars from our 358 members on a national level. Keep in mind we are a chapter of a national organization as many national members have become dues paying members of our chapter because we offer value to our members.
So as I see it we have the publication Sunbeam Survivor and do offer technical and educational talks and seminars at our national meetings. So we could use this for compliance. I think the fundamental question is does our board and membership want to pursue 502 (C)(3) status.
As a side note, we use a CPA fro, a non-profit organization, who donates his time to help us with any IRS compliance issues, for example. How best to complete
Form 1023EZ, a two page application form required by the IRS on a yearly basis.
So the choice is ours.
Thanks for the opportunity to contribute.
Joe Montecalvo
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