Mounted search and rescue

[Una Smith <una.smith@att.net>]

Chris Pennington wrote:
>                                     Our SO just told us we had to 
>file for 501 (c) (3) and we fall under $5000 annually.

A quote from the IRS exempt organizations (EO) website:

        The following organizations are excepted from the exemption
        application requirement:
        [...]
        * An organization that is not a private foundation and the
        gross receipts of which in each taxable year are normally
        not more than $5,000.

Source:  http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=123067,00.html

There may be other reasons why your unit needs to file.  Perhaps ask
your SO for more details re your situation.

For example, if the organization will solicit charitable donations,
most states require registration, and the state registration may
require an IRS letter of determination that the organization both
qualifies under section 501(c)(3) *and* is charitable.  Charitable
does not follow automatically from 501(c)(3), and vice versa!

The IRS has loads of useful information on this, but keep in mind 
the information is slanted toward organizations with orders of
magnitude more cash flow than most SAR units ever dream of seeing.

The IRS website has within the past few months been overhauled, so
old URLs probably won't work.  Here is the main page for charities:

        http://www.irs.gov/charities/index.html

Within the site, a very useful view of the content is called "Life
Cycle of a Public Charity":  it walks through the entire process
of forming a nonprofit organization, one step at a time.

        Una Smith
        New Mexico