Complex new forms focus less on finances, more on how groups operate and prevent corruption.

By Christopher K. Hepp

"I've told colleagues, it is now going to take a week or more," she said. "But it is a good thing because now we can do some spring cleaning. We will reexamine our existing policies and make sure they are in line with the best practices."

Which is what the IRS was hoping.

"We don't think it is our place to tell you how to govern, but we do believe it's our place to educate and push organizations into developing a governance structure of their own," Lois G. Lerner, director of the IRS's exempt-organizations, said when the new forms were previewed two years ago.