Tax, Legal & Compliance

Eight conservative groups are backing an appeal to the Supreme Court over a controversial California regulation requiring nonprofits to disclose their big donors on a tax form, saying the rule tramples on donors' constitutional rights. Mark Fitzgibbons of American Target Advertising, a direct marketing and fundraising agency for nonprofit organizations, accuses California Attorney General Kamala…

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust has sued Brazil's Petrobras to recoup stock losses stemming from a corruption scandal at the state-run oil company. According to a complaint filed late Thursday night in federal court in Manhattan, Petrobras' "pervasive bribery and money laundering scheme" caused the trust and another plaintiff, WGI Emerging Markets Fund…

Three former H.J. Heinz employees are suing the Kraft Heinz Co. because the company ended a program that would have made large donations to charity in those employees' names. The H.J. Heinz Co. in 1989 offered the Key Employee Charitable Award Program, in which eligible top employees could donate money each year for five years…

The Internal Revenue Service revoked the nonprofit status of the veterans benefit organization that hosted and sold tickets to a foreign policy speech by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump aboard a retired U.S. battleship, The Associated Press has learned. The group's endorsement of Trump at the event also could raise legal problems under campaign finance…

Los Angeles County supervisors rejected a push to exempt nonprofits and job-training programs from a plan to increase the minimum wage for workers in county-controlled areas to $15 an hour by 2021. The measure to increase the wage in unincorporated areas first was passed by a split vote in July. The board approved the final…

Timothy Sedlak, a private investigator in Florida, was charged Monday with trying to gain unauthorized access to a charity's computer system allegedly while doing research on whether some nonprofits are “unintentionally” providing financial support to Islamic jihadists. The charity wasn't identified in a complaint filed against the 42-year-old Sedlak in federal court in the Southern…

The Internal Revenue Code (IRC) rules limit the amount of time a nonprofit can spend on direct or indirect lobbying. The IRS rules, however, define lobbying only as work done in relation to specific federal, state or local legislation. This can present 
important issues for nonprofits as we ask the age-old question: “Is my organization lobbying or are we really just advocating and educating?” Here are some tips to keep in mind that will help you to promote your organization and its mission, while not running afoul of the lobbying rules...

Federal authorities on Thursday indicted former Community Action of Minneapolis CEO Bill Davis and his son, Minneapolis Police Officer Jordan Davis, on 16 counts of fraud and theft, alleging they spent money meant for weatherization projects on personal travel, dining, entertainment and a car. The charges say the pair devised and executed a scheme to…

On June 25, 2015, the Associated Press reported that Paul LePage, the Republican governor of Maine, had been accused of pressuring the Good Will-Hinckley school, a nonprofit charter school for at-risk youth, into removing Mark Eves from his position as president. According to the report, LePage threatened to withhold from the school $500,000 in yearly funds if it kept Eves on board, which, in turn, could have led the school to miss out on 
another $2 million in private funds, a potentially devastating blow to the small nonprofit. Eves, as it happens, is Maine’s Democratic House Speaker...

The onetime director of Jared Fogle's charity has agreed to plead guilty to charges of child exploitation and distributing and receiving child pornography as part of a conspiracy with the former Subway pitchman, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Indianapolis said Tuesday. The plea agreement with Russell Taylor, 43, a former head of the charity focusing…