Estate & Tax Planning

Tax-Exempt Planning

Tax-exempt organizations turn to us for assistance in complying with complex federal regulations that constantly and, sometimes abruptly, change. We routinely work with federal and state tax and other regulatory agencies, including the:

• Internal Revenue Service
• Massachusetts Attorney General's Office
• Massachusetts Department of Revenue
• Secretary of the Commonwealth

Recent and ongoing matters include advice and counsel on a variety of areas, including:

• Helping clients determine whether a business or nonprofit structure would best enable them to achieve their goals
• Applications for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status
• Establishment and planning for other tax-exempt organizations
• Advising on compliance issues associated with each type of tax-exempt organization
• Guidance on unrelated business taxable income (UBTI)
• Advising on compliance for rules regarding political lobbying and activity
• Formation of 501(c)(4) organizations and political action committees (PACs)

Representative Experience

• Formed nonprofit entities and procured recognition of tax-exempt status.
• Counseled nonprofit organizations on tax-exempt organizations law, including the unrelated business income tax (UBIT), intermediate sanctions and private foundation self-dealing rules, fiscal sponsorship, and federal and state reporting (IRS Form 990 and Massachusetts Form PC).
• Advised an operating charity on structuring sponsorship arrangements and partnerships with for-profit companies, enabling the charity to raise millions of dollars in new revenue without jeopardizing its tax-exempt status.
• Provided tax analysis to a university establishing a commercialization fund to help transition university research to the marketplace.
• Advised on receipt of complex gifts by nonprofit organizations, including charitable gift annuities, interests in charitable trusts, and planned and other innovative gifts.
• Procured abatement from the IRS of $10 million in tax assessments and penalties against a private foundation.
• Represented a religious organization in a successful challenge to the city’s attempt to tax real estate used for religious purposes, providing definitive guidance on the scope of the tax exemption for “houses of religious worship,” in Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette v. Bd. of Assessors of Attleboro, 476 Mass. 690 (2017).