Tell Us How!
On May 15, 2019 – It was the first Nonprofit Tax Day for many nonprofits – organizations with a calendar-year fiscal year had to pay a 21-percent unrelated business income tax on the expenses they incurred in 2018 for providing their employees with transportation benefits, such as parking and transit passes. This oxymoronic tax – a tax on tax-exempts – is estimated by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation to divert more than $200 million from nonprofit missions in 2019 alone. All to pay a tax that nary a soul on Capitol Hill thinks is a good idea.
To convince Congress to repeal this tax, lawmakers need to see real-world examples of the harm the law is causing. We’ve prepared this quick surveyasking you to report how much your nonprofit paid in taxes, what it cost your nonprofit to estimate the tax liability using the IRS’s complicated four-step calculus, and how that money could have been better spent advancing your mission in local communities.
We’ve heard of one nonprofit that had to pay as transportation tax an amount equal to the salaries and benefits of two full-time employees. Another paid accounting fees of more than $2,000, only to learn that it owed just $7.00 to the Treasury on Nonprofit Tax Day. Both examples tell of the unconscionable impact of the tax on nonprofits for providing transportation benefits. But two stories won’t carry the day; Congress needs to know how the tax, and the failure to repeal it, hurts nonprofits, nonprofit employees, and the people and communities they serve in congressional districts and states.
All of which leads to this URGENT request: Answer this short survey on the nonprofit transportation benefits tax and share your nonprofit’s experience. Help repeal this unfair tax by sharing data that will make the case and prove that nonprofit assets are better spent on mission than on taxes.
