UPDATE: The chat session scheduled for April 10, 2014 has been postponed. We hope to have a rescheduled date soon, so please stay tuned.
This Thursday, April 10, 2014, at 1 p.m. ET, the Digital Media Law Project will be holding a live online session to discuss the legal environment for tax-exempt journalism in the United States. DMLP attorneys Jeff Hermes and Andy Sellars will review their experiences in helping journalism nonprofits seeking Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status from the IRS, as well as new DMLP resources for news organizations thinking about applying for a tax exemption.
Whether you're a journalism non-profit seeking a tax exemption from the IRS, or just interested in how the agency looks at news organizations, this session will give you the chance to learn and to ask questions about the IRS process, such as:
- What is the IRS looking for when it evaluates a journalism organization's application for Section 501(c)(3) status?
- Why does the IRS ask applicants certain questions about their operations?
- Are there "red flags" that can cause problems with an application?
We will post connection information and a link to the online session on the DMLP home page on Thursday morning. But before then, we're asking anyone who is interested to help us kick off the discussion by submitting questions to us via e-mail at staff [at] dmlp [dot] org.
We'll read all of the questions, and try to answer as many as we can during the session; of course, we'll take questions from the audience as well. Unfortunately, we won't be able to provide legal advice about specific organizations or their applications to the IRS -- that should be done in private with your own lawyer -- but we will surface general issues of interest to everyone.
We look forward to seeing you on Thursday!