malenurse said:

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That is my understanding, yes.

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not unless you like to be surrounded by steel bars.

and tell your friend on the church committee the same.

Reminds me of when I was the "finance committee" when the church I went to for 30 years was a startup church.

I had a member that wanted to give the church $ and then turn around and have the church pay a relative they wanted to help.

I told the member that wouldn't be happening.

I would not do the BSA group under the Fire Department. I would get its own 501C3 designation. Do the EZ form - its pretty quick.

Also, you are allowed to put on receipts "Applying for non-profit status" or something similar. This makes it legit for the giver to use for taxes. So the length of time it takes to apply is a non-issue anyway.

txaggieacct85 said:

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malenurse said:

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txaggieacct85 said:

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malenurse said:

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That is my understanding, yes.

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not unless you like to be surrounded by steel bars.

and tell your friend on the church committee the same.

Reminds me of when I was the "finance committee" when the church I went to for 30 years was a startup church.

I had a member that wanted to give the church $ and then turn around and have the church pay a relative they wanted to help.

I told the member that wouldn't be happening.

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I am now reading about "Fiscal Sponsorship" which allows a charitable organization to collect funds for another group. But, the sponsoring org controls the expenditures. It is not a simple pass through of funds.

I'm still learning

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I don't know if I can make this any clearer. Run away from this.

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"Fiscal Sponsorship" is a legitimate thing. I have seen it operated this way in several relationships between non-profit groups. (ministry groups operating under a church's umbrella, booster clubs operating under a Schools EIN, etc).

I have also seen a move away from it because of the issue of who is in control. In the booster club example - if the school is ultimately in control, then the boosters technically have no say in what the club does.

Also, in the case of the OP, the Fire Department would possibly taking on the liability of the BSA group. That, to me is the more concerning issue. I would not want something that happened in the BSA group to cause harm to the Fire Department.

Is it illegal? No. Is it the wisest thing to do? Definitely not. The better thing to do is just get your own 501c3 status.

Wait….so Barnes/txaggieacct85 is weighing in on a thread, and speaking definitively (and incorrectly once again) about something he doesn't understand?

Color me shocked.

Straight clown show.

txaggieacct85 said:

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I'm this notion that I used a handled called Barnes is a joke and you're a joke. Tell me what I said that was wrong incorrect. You can't

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A CPA has weighed in above and pointed out that fiscal sponsorship is a thing. You roll up in here all Barnes-like claiming they'll go to jail if they do something like this (cause you know and they don't) when in reality 501's do this in multiple places (gigemhilo gave you a few examples above).

Go back to bragging on your one-hit wonder Cinemark and leave these threads to the experts when they weigh in, as opposed to confusing the OP when he's looking for legitimate help.

txaggieacct85 said:

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handle234 said:

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Why wouldn't they get their own EIN and get non profit status? It's not very hard and this will create accounting headaches at minimum, and potential legal headaches.

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creating a non profit organization is more involved than you're depicting here and involves a lot of overhead that I'm sure is not worth it unless you have a BSA light with many troops and even then I'm not sure it's worth.

the alternative of using the fire dept to pass $ through to the troop is illegal.

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And creating a 501 is not overly complicated nor does it require a lot of overhead (I've been involved in the creation of two).

Take your uneducated trolling elsewhere.

txaggieacct85 said:

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Passing money through a fire department for a boys scout troop is illegal. If you recommend it you're complicit in the crime

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I'll take the accountant's word above over you 100 times out of 100.

I guess every school district that handles money for booster clubs and church that handles money for different ministry groups and organizations are going to jail.

I'm absolutely fine with different opinions; it's one of the things I love about Texags. The idea that this is automatically and absolutely a jail sentence is the funny part on this. He's done this stuff on lots of threads in here over the last few months and has been laughed out of several of them.

Its par for the course and his posting style is very Barnes'esque. He also didn't deny the Barnes references and commentary for weeks from multiple posters on several of the older threads. He didn't deny it, he didn't ask who Barnes was, he didn't address it….it kind of became laughable.

I've never gotten the Barnes vibe from you so if you're another Barnes sock, then well played! I haven't always agreed/disagreed with you but I've always thought you were a reasonable and solid poster from what I remember.

Thanks for weighing in!

My own opinion on this is that I'd listen to my accountant. I pay them for advice so when they give it to me I tend to follow it. I do the same with my attorney, my doctor, my mentors etc. Setting up a 501c is not hard and it's fairly inexpensive. 1,000 different organizations will have 1,000 different budgets. The idea that someone could come in to this thread and state with any certainty what this org's overhead will be is comical but the set up charges are usually pretty cheap.

malenurse said:

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I think this board provides me the best chance at getting an informed answer.

Backstory - I am a Board President of a tax exempt charitable organization. (volunteer fire department)

The department has been approached to sponsor a cub scout pack. We have done this in the past and are more than happy to provide facilities for this pack.

The pack has asked our permission for them to use our 501 (c) (3) status for fund raising activities. We have been told that this has become common practice as groups have moved away from the BSA.

Another member on our board is also on the Mgmt Committee of a local church and has stated that they are doing the same thing with another Scout Troop.

Our (the department) accountant, who is a CPA, has strongly recommended that we do not allow this.

What say you? Anyone have a similar experience? Or, is there a CPA on the board that could share their knowledge?

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Retired CPA and my thought is not to do it. I had this scenario come up many years ago and that was my advice back then and they chose to follow my advice. With different people running each entity (fire department run by one group, Scout pack by another group) it would seem you would be running the risk of one doing something wrong and tainting the other entity. Your own tax-exempt status, legal liability, insurance, etc. are reasons to stay separate.

I would give no credence to a local church doing the same thing with another scout troop.

As I recall, the IRS will generally make the recognition of the entity's tax-exempt status retroactively, but you would want to check with someone on that. If that is still the case, I think the best route would be to file for tax-exempt status and operate properly until approval is granted.