Skepticon is totally on its way to official IRS recognition as a charity!
Your friendly neighborhood number-cruncher here! After many moons of trials & tribulation, drinking, crying, and finally the assistance of the mostest greatest CPA in the world… we have all the paperwork for our 501(c)(3) status packed up and ready to ship!!! It was a very long time coming, but it turns out incorporation and taxes are generally something that the volunteer organizers (who consist of 4 art degrees, 1 mathematics, 1 nursing, 1 business, 2 college drop outs and a cat) generally don’t handle.
It was really, really hard and if any other organizations are thinking about being nonprofit charities, you seriously need to talk to a financial professional, invest heavily into quickbooks, lots of beer, and save every receipt ever. Three years and two failed solo attempts later, we are shipping off the final 46 pages of paperwork and an $850 check.
Huh?
What in the world is an IRS recognized 501(c)(3) status, you ask? Those are the silly numbers the IRS has arbitrarily assigned to an Educational Public Charity. Yeah, that’s right, I used it as a proper noun. That’s how excited I am. Anyway, as an Educational Public Charity, we’ll be able to do the following awesome things:
- Apply (and hopefully receive) for Education-related grants
- Not pay sales tax. This helps your money stretch further. Example: Over $1,000 in tax for the venue alone last year. Shipping, printing, plane tickets, and more all add up.
- Get on state and federal level websites that list charities to get new donors
- Send you awesome donors letters that might get you tax deductions
A What?
Yeah, that’s right. I said tax deductions. The moment you’ve been waiting six long years for: donating to your favorite convention should be tax deductible! Now, a caveat, we have to be approved for it, and you should probably talk to your mostest greatest CPA in the world (we call ours Cool Rebecca. No, it’s not me.) to make sure your donation can be deducted from your personal taxes… but I can see no way that this could go wrong!
We are requesting that the IRS approve our tax exempt super awesome charity status all the way back to July of 2012. If you are one of our fabulous donors, once we have the official word, we’ll send you a letter acknowledging your awesomeness and your donation amount. You might want to hang on to that.
If you’re planning to do any sort of amendment to your tax return and need it ASAP, shoot us an email at [email protected]. Now that you can get back when you give, what are you waiting for? Click that donate button!!!
3 Comments
Rebecca · May 15, 2014 at 11:58 am
Rebekah is too modest to publicize her own amazeness in this process, so I’ll do it for her :) She has done an incredible amount of work to help get this all done, from learning how to run QuickBooks Online to teaching me the ways of Skepticon to proofreading all 40-whatever pages of the application, and so much more. I wish I could hire her (but the commute to CA might be a deal breaker.) Make sure you all give her a hug or a high five or buy her a drink or something when you’re at Skepticon 7!
Rebekah · May 15, 2014 at 5:29 pm
Aww, shucks. Cool Rebecca, you’re going to make me blush! <3
P.S. California, huh? I'm willing to negotiate...
Kristjan Wager · May 19, 2014 at 7:11 am
Great news. Now, if you just can make Skepticon donations tax deductible in Denmark, I’ll be all set.
More seriously, it is great news that you are now (nearly) a nonprofit charity, so you might be able to raise more money and keep costs lower.