In November 2024, the IRS announced that interest rates will decrease for the first quarter of 2025, which begins January 1, 2025. The changes outlined in IR-2024-290 outline all the relevant interest rate changes including various reductions.
By Robert Gaffney
Fraud is a persistent threat every organization must face. Although most are honest and do not commit illegal activities, all it takes is one bad actor to have a significant and negative impact. The risk is especially high for nonprofit organizations that have limited resources to implement the training and controls necessary for optimal risk management. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ (ACFE) Occupational Fraud Report 2022: Report to the Nations, there were 188 cases of nonprofit fraud reported with a median loss of $60,000 during the period examined. It was also reported that religious, charitable, and social service organizations experienced a median loss of $78,000.
At the end of December, President Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 into law. While the primary purpose of the legislation was to allocate federal funding for the coming year, it did contain several other parcels of legislation within. One of these was the Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2021, more commonly referred to as the SECURE Act 2.0. The long-awaited legislation aimed at new retirement savings reform is based on many of the changes initially proposed both in the House and Senate. These include changes to plan design, modified RMD rules, matching student loan payments, and expanded eligibility for part-time employees.
In September 2020, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2020-07, Not-for-Profit Entities (Topic 958): Presentation and Disclosures by Not-for-Profit Entities for Contributed Nonfinancial Assets. The new standard is now in effect for annual periods beginning after June 15, 2021, and interim periods within fiscal years beginning after June 15, 2022.
On January 28, 2022, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed bills S844 and S2533, raising the threshold for nonprofit audits from $500,000 to $1M, effective immediately. Therefore, New Jersey nonprofits whose gross receipts exceed $500,000, but do not exceed $1M, no longer need an audit.
This post updates previously published content regarding legislation that would raise the threshold for nonprofit audits from $500,000 to $1M. Assembly Bill 4635 (AB4635) passed the New Jersey legislature on December 20, 2021, and now heads to Governor Murphy for further action.
The Employee Retention Credit (ERC) is one of a handful of federal programs aimed at helping organizations and businesses maintain healthy operations through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For nonprofits, programs like the ERC and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) can be the difference between providing services and having to shutter their doors.
Within the IRS is the Tax-Exempt & Government Entities Division (TE/GE), and its mission is to help customers understand and comply with tax laws and apply those laws with integrity and fairness to all. Its customers comprise employee plans, exempt organizations, and government entities, covering such diverse organizations as major universities, pension funds, state and local governments, charities, and private foundations.
Nonprofits will see their leases in a whole new light as they begin implementing the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB’s) new lease reporting standards. As was revealed in early 2016, the FASB will soon require almost all for-profit and nonprofit entities to start recording leases on their balance sheets and statements of financial position. Under current lease accounting standards, nonprofits do not record operating leases on their statements of financial position at all but merely record “lease expenses” on their statements of activities when they make their monthly payments. Let’s walk through the basics of this new requirement and discuss how it will affect you and your organization in the future.
In early March, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), the fourth economic relief package passed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It contains several provisions to help families, businesses, and local governments deal with the resulting challenges, including a $350B State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund, $10B Capital Projects Fund, $21B for emergency rental assistance, and expansion of the Employee Retention Credit.
