Filing you club's taxes

Homebrew Clubs
1

I just wanted to let you know that if you are filing your clubs form 990N today, the deadline for calendar year 2015, you might encounter difficulties.  In particular, if you have never filed form 990N before and have not applied for tax exempt status, the IRS won’t allow you to file form 990N.  You have to call the IRS first according to the IRS website.  Don’t bother calling today, because the phones are busy today.

Here is the relevant FAQ from the IRS website (Annual electronic notice (Form 990-N) for small organizations FAQs: How to file | Internal Revenue Service).
When my organization attempted to file Form 990-N, we received an error message indicating that the EIN was incorrect.  What should we do?

If you are certain that your EIN was entered correctly, the IRS may not have your organization listed as a tax-exempt organization.  This may be because your application for tax exemption is pending or you did not apply for tax exemption.  If this is the case, an officer of the organization should contact Customer Account Services at 1-877-829-5500 (a toll-free number) and ask that the organization be set up to allow filing of Form 990-N, the e-Postcard.

Your organization will need to allow six weeks for the IRS to update its records before you can file your Form 990-N. Your organization should not be concerned if this delay causes your filing to occur after your Form 990-N is due because there are no late filing or delinquency penalties associated with Form 990-N. Note, however that an organization’s tax-exempt status is automatically revoked if it does not satisfy its annual filing requirement for three consecutive years.

2

I just wanted to add the following information:
When you call to get your self-declared* tax exempt 501(c)(7) status recognized by the IRS, you will likely need the following info to provide to your friendly tax person (and I sincerely mean friendly):

  1. Your club’s purpose from your bylaws or similar.  If you don’t have one, it can be pleasure and recreation involving homebrewing of beer
    2.  Your club’s corporate form.  In Illinois, there are not-for-profit corporations.
  2. Primary source of money for club.  Typical allowable sources are membership dues, meeting dues, etc.
  3. Club’s fiscal year.  I recommend the calendar year.
  4. Club’s annual revenues.  Revenues over $50,000/yr probably means that your are not eligible to be  self-declared.
    6.  Your name and position in club, i.e., you have to be an officer of the club or an attorney for the club.

*Self-declared means that you don’t have to file form 1024 and the $400 fee and also means that you won’t get the IRS’s formal letter of recognition.  FOrm 1024 requires the same info.