The IRS is developing a web-based product called “Cyber Assistant.” It will allow people to make an application for tax-exempt status for an organization. Online!
OMG! OMG! OMG!
This is amazingly good news for normal people and small nonprofits. Why? Because the IRS system for qualifying a nonprofit is currently paper-based with the entirely too OCD/anal-retentive Form 1023 application process.
Meaning it’s too complex for a normal person to consider doing (and you get bonus points if you, dear reader, have actually done a tax-exempt status application yourself), and expensive to hire a lawyer to do the work.
The IRS has just taken a chunk of revenue away from tax practitioners who do these applications, and put the money straight into the pocket of the nonprofit being organized. This is a Very Good Thing.
It is also a warning call to tax practitioners — if your business depends on doing brain-dead work at high prices, you’re going to be road kill.