Tax, Legal & Compliance

The U.S. Supreme Court punted on a challenge by religious nonprofit groups to the Obamacare contraception mandate, sending the case back to lower courts to allow the parties to work out a compromise among themselves. The nonprofit groups challenged an "opt-out" provision of the law, which allowed such nonprofits to avoid providing no-cost contraception to…

Despite a strict prohibition against electioneering, nearly 90 nonprofit churches, hospitals and schools in Illinois collectively donated more than $80,000 to local campaign groups over the past decade with little or no consequences, a Better Government Association analysis found. While nonprofits, such as trade associations and unions, are allowed to engage in some campaigning, the…

Just days after it fired its executive director and chief financial officer amid controversy over $750,000 in embezzled funds, New York arts charity Healing Arts Initiative said it will shut down. The charity has been at the center of an increasingly bizarre series of events dating back to last year. In August, the organization's executive director, D. Alexandra Dyer, was attacked with drain cleaner, leaving her disfigured...

It's quick and easy to donate money to charities online, and one website in particular is ready to accept donations and distribute them to various Maryland charities. So why is one of the charities upset? Online giving is as easy as search, click and type in credit card information. The hard part is knowing where…

Concern Worldwide, a humanitarian aid organization based in the U.K., was in scramble mode last week after it mistakenly charged 25,000 monthly donors 100 times their normal giving amounts. The charity didn't provide dollar figures, but some quick math reveals a multimillion-dollar mistake. If each donor pledged $52 a month (the average recurring monthly donation, according to one study) that total would be an astronomical $130 million, with each donor's bank account hit for $5,200...

Healing Arts Initiative, the New York charity at the center of a $750,000 embezzlement controversy, on Friday fired executive director D. Alexandra Dyer and chief financial officer Frank Williams. The board said it fired the pair for withholding “critical financial and other information,” according to The New York Times. But Dyer and Williams say they were forced out for exposing the board's financial negligence...

In a sign of the continuing chaos at the top of the $12 billion Hershey charity, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General is seeking the resignation of three long-standing board members at the Hershey School for poor children, according to a letter from the office obtained by The Inquirer. The resignations would amount to an…

Hard to see, the Dark Side is—especially when you can’t use your lightsaber to light the way. Newmindspace, a Toronto-based nonprofit, has rebranded its popular charity lightsaber battles as the “Cats in Space Tour” after it received a cease-and-desist letter from Lucasfilm’s lawyers for using trademarked terms, the Toronto Star reported...

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said Thursday he intends to take court action to stop a Utah telemarketing company from using what he called “deceptive, unsavory and aggressive” solicitation tactics to extract charitable contributions that Michigan residents have said they never agreed to make. Schuette said in a statement that he will ask for a…

House Republicans seek to prevent the IRS from collecting information about nonprofits' donors—a call to change the federal requirement for nonprofits to list donors of $5,000 or more on their tax returns...