The Private Brief · Calendar

The Nonprofit Compliance Calendar

Nothing here is difficult. Compliance failures at small organisations are almost never decisions — they are the result of nobody owning a date, and of the person who did own it having left.

Deadlines below are written as the rule that produces them, because a fixed date is wrong for every organisation that is not on a December fiscal year. Work out your own dates once, put them in the board calendar, and give each one a named owner.

How to use this

Take your fiscal year end and derive the four or five dates that follow from it. Put them on the board calendar with a name against each — not a committee, a person. Review the list annually, because thresholds move and an organisation that crosses one acquires an obligation it did not have the year before.

This describes the common shape for a New York not-for-profit corporation recognised under section 501(c)(3). Organisations formed elsewhere, or operating in several states, will have more.

Every year, keyed to your fiscal year end

IRS annual return — Form 990, 990-EZ or 990-N: Due the fifteenth day of the fifth month after the fiscal year ends. Which version applies turns on gross receipts and total assets.; Failing to file for three consecutive years revokes tax-exempt status automatically, without a hearing and without regard to the reason. This is the one that ends organisations, and the smallest filers — those eligible for the 990-N postcard — are the most likely to miss it because it feels too small to matter.
Extension — Form 8868: An automatic six-month extension of the return, if filed by the original due date.; It extends the filing, not any tax that may be owed on unrelated business income.
New York annual filing — CHAR500: Filed with the Charities Bureau of the New York Attorney General, generally due four and a half months after the fiscal year ends, with the 990 attached.
Independent CPA review or audit: New York requires an independent accountant’s review or a full audit above defined revenue thresholds, and the report accompanies the CHAR500.; Thresholds are set by statute and have been raised over time. Check the current figure in any year revenue moves materially — this is the obligation organisations acquire by growing and do not notice.
Unrelated business income — Form 990-T: Required where the organisation has gross unrelated business income at or above the filing threshold. Exempt status does not exempt unrelated business activity from tax.
Payroll and information returns: W-2s and 1099-NECs to recipients and to the agencies in January, on the same schedule as any other employer.

Every year, on the board’s own calendar

Annual meeting of the board: Held as the bylaws require, with minutes recorded. Directors elected, officers appointed, terms tracked.; Bylaws are frequently more demanding than practice. An organisation that has quietly stopped holding the meeting its own bylaws require has a governance problem before it has a filing problem.
Conflict of interest disclosures: New York requires a conflict of interest policy and an annual written statement from each director and key person.; Collecting the forms is not the obligation. Reading them, and having a documented process when one discloses something real, is.
Related-party transactions: Reviewed and approved by disinterested directors, with the basis for the determination minuted, before the transaction where possible.
Whistleblower policy: Required above employee and revenue thresholds, and expected as a matter of practice below them.
Executive compensation review: Compensation of the chief executive reviewed by an independent body against comparability data, and the process documented.; The documentation is the point. It is what supports a presumption of reasonableness if the figure is ever questioned.
Audit oversight: Where an audit is required, the board or its audit committee retains the auditor and reviews the results directly, not only through management.

Periodically, and easy to forget

Registered agent and address: Kept current with the state. Notices go to the address on file whether or not anyone still collects mail there.; A missed notice is not a defence. This is the cheapest failure on this page to prevent and one of the more expensive to discover.
Charitable registration in other states: Soliciting donations across state lines can require registration in those states, each with its own renewal cycle.; A donate button solicits everywhere. Whether that creates an obligation depends on the state and on the facts of the solicitation.
Sales and property tax exemptions: Held under separate applications from federal exemption, and some require periodic renewal or reapplication.
Public inspection copies: The exemption application and the three most recent annual returns must be available for public inspection on request.
Bylaws and policy review: Read the bylaws every few years against what the organisation actually does. Quorum requirements written for a five-member board rarely survive growth to fifteen.

Triggered by events, not by the calendar

A change in purpose or activities: Reported on the annual return, and in some cases requiring amendment of the certificate of incorporation.
A substantial gift with conditions: Restricted gifts create enforceable obligations that outlast the people who accepted them. Record the restriction where the finance function will see it, not only in the acknowledgement letter.
Employing staff in a new state: Registration, withholding and unemployment insurance follow the employee’s location.
Dissolution or merger: In New York, requires Attorney General review and, in defined circumstances, court approval. It is a process to start early rather than a filing to make at the end.

This is general information about how these instruments and obligations usually work, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not make you a client. Deadlines and requirements turn on facts particular to you — your fiscal year, your state, the agreement actually in front of you. Confirm your own before you rely on any of it.