Well as a new year brings new officers of your genealogy society what duties are required by the State of Washington and the Internal Revenue Service to keep your non profit status? Which officer will probably be the person that has to deal with the form filing.
First off is the form the State of Washington sends out to collect the fee for a non profit organization. Did you see who it is addressed to? It is addressed to the Registered Agent of the non profit. The Registered Agent is a real person that the state sends correspondence to, and also any legal papers which I hope you will never get. All corporations are required to have a Registered Agent and Non profits are actually a non profit corporation. You can hire a Registered Agent, but I will assume some member of your society will volunteer since all it requires is a Washington mailing address. Since this part requires a fee the treasurer will probably fill in this form and send it back to
the Secretary of State.
The Internal Revenue Service requires all non profits to file a 990 form and they have three different 990 forms. So which one should you file? If your total gross income for the year was less than $50,000 you can file the 990-N or as the IRS calls it the 990 Postcard since it is the size of a large postcard, with only one question, was your income less than $50,000 last year? If your gross income was over $50,000 the next 990 is the 990-EZ form and even though it says 990-EZ it is several pages long and may require an accountant to help you fill it out and file it. The last one is the regular 990 form if your gross income is over $200,000 and it will require an accountant to help you fill
this one in. These last two can either be filed as a paper form or an accountant will probably be able to E-File it. The 990 Postcard is only filed online and this is where you can find it. Just takes a few minutes for someone to file online, and any officer that is fairly computer literate should be able to file the 990 Postcard. All the 990 forms are due May 15 for calendar year non profits and if the Internal Revenue Service does not receive a 990 form for three years your non profit status with the Internal Revenue Service will expire and you will have to reapply if you want to continue as a non profit.
The Internal Revenue Service has many newsletters to help taxpayers and they have one here just for non profits that you can sign up and get updates on any changes that may affect your non profit status.
Since this is an election year I will give you a warning, none of your societies PAID officers can support any candidate or proposition that will be voted on in an election.
Volunteer officers are allowed to support any one or any proposition, as only PAID officers can not support candidates or propositions. You are not supposed to use any funds from the non profit to support candidates or propositions either.
Links for the article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_agent
http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/FAQ—Registered-Agents.aspx
https://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Annual-Electronic-Filing-Requirement-for-Small-Exempt-Organizations-Form-990-N-e-Postcard
https://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Subscribe-to-Exempt-Organization-Update