Form 990 Revulsion

In case you haven’t noticed, the federal government has instituted a whole new Form 990, the IRS form that a non-profit has to fill out annually. It used to be pretty straightforward. Now it’s Byzantine.

The organization where I’m business manager (volunteer) received a questionnaire from its accountants. This questionnaire (an Excel file) has over 40 different pages to be filled out, questions answered, data schedules filled in, etc. Frankly, it’s a nightmare.

I can only posit that the reason we are subjected to this horrendous requirement is malfeasance and misfeasance by some big non-profits where funds were not used in the manner they were supposed to be and executives were paid outlandish salaries, etc. So the rest of us who have been honest and make sure our funds are used for the purposes we outlined in our 501(c)(3) application are penalized by bad behavior from other agencies. It’s the old “one rotten apple spoils the barrel,” I guess.

Well, it makes work for the CPAs since no mere mortal could fill all this out and make sense of what the government requires. And it makes people like me who have to fill out these 40 pages of questions and figures crazy and angry.