Last updated 2026-07-25
TL;DR
Form 990-EZ is the mid-size annual return for tax-exempt nonprofits: gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000 [1]. Smaller groups (gross receipts normally $50,000 or less) can file the simpler 990-N instead [2]. Miss three straight years of any required 990 and the IRS auto-revokes your exempt status [3].
What is Form 990-EZ?
Form 990-EZ is the "Short Form Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax." It's a shortened version of the full Form 990, built for tax-exempt organizations that are too big for the postcard-simple 990-N but not big enough to need the full 12-page 990 with all its schedules. The IRS instructions put it plainly: organizations "with gross receipts less than $200,000 and total assets less than $500,000 at the end of the tax year" may file Form 990-EZ instead of Form 990 [1]. Both thresholds have to be met. If your booster club took in $180,000 this year but is sitting on $520,000 in a reserve fund from a decade of car washes and concessions, you're over the asset line and back to the full form 990. Most youth sports boosters, PTOs, and small alumni groups that have grown past the 990-N threshold but haven't hired staff or bought a building land right in 990-EZ territory. It's four pages plus whatever schedules apply to your situation (Schedule A for public charity status, Schedule G for fundraising events, Schedule O for anything you need to explain in plain language). A quick gut check: if your treasurer can produce a real income statement and balance sheet from QuickBooks or even a good spreadsheet, you have enough financial detail to fill out a 990-EZ. If you're still tracking everything in a checkbook register, you'll want to build that reporting habit before the deadline creeps up on you.
What is the 990 tax form, generally?
| 990-N (e-Postcard) | Smallest orgs | Gross receipts normally $50,000 or less [2] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 990-EZ | Small-to-mid orgs | Gross receipts under $200,000 AND total assets under $500,000 [1] | |
| 990 (full) | Larger orgs | Gross receipts $200,000+ or total assets $500,000+ [1] | |
| 990-PF | Private foundations | All private foundations, regardless of size [3] | Booster clubs and PTOs are almost never private foundations; they're public charities that qualify under 501(c)(3) or, in some cases, operate as 501(c)(4) or unincorporated associations. That means your filing question usually comes down to the first three rows in that table. For a side-by-side rundown of all four, see 990 tax form and irs form 990. |
Form 990 is the annual information return that most tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS. It's not an income tax return in the traditional sense; exempt organizations don't owe tax on income related to their exempt purpose. Instead, the 990 is a disclosure document. It tells the IRS, and the public, what the organization took in, what it spent, who runs it, and whether it's still operating within the rules that got it tax-exempt status in the first place. There are four versions, and which one you file depends entirely on size: | Form | Who files it | Threshold |
What is Form 990, and how is 990-EZ different?
The full Form 990 is longer, asks more governance questions, and requires more schedules. Both the full 990 and the 990-EZ ask about compensation, related-party transactions, and program accomplishments, but the full form goes deeper. It has Part VI on governance and management practices, Part VII with expanded compensation tables, and generally expects more sophisticated bookkeeping behind the numbers. 990-EZ trims that down. You still report revenue by source (contributions, program service revenue, investment income, fundraising events), still list your officers and their compensation, still answer yes/no questions about lobbying, unrelated business income, and transactions with insiders. But the level of detail is lighter and there are fewer required schedules. Here's the practical difference for a volunteer treasurer: the full 990 usually needs a paid preparer or a very experienced volunteer. The 990-EZ is doable by a organized treasurer with a full year of clean books, especially if last year's return is sitting in the file to use as a template. Neither form is a rubber stamp exercise, though. Get a number wrong on gross receipts or misclassify a fundraiser and you can trigger IRS questions later.
Does my booster club or PTO have to file the 990-EZ, or can we file the 990-N instead?
This comes down to one number: gross receipts. The IRS says organizations may file the 990-N e-Postcard if their "gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less" [2]. "Normally" is doing some work in that sentence: the IRS defines it using a rolling average over your most recent three tax years (or fewer, if you're newer than that), not a single hard cutoff year to year [2]. So one unusually good fundraising year doesn't automatically bump you up if your three-year average still lands under $50,000. If your average gross receipts are over $50,000 but under $200,000, and your total assets stay under $500,000, you're in 990-EZ territory. You don't get to choose 990-N just because it's easier; the IRS assigns the requirement based on your actual receipts and assets, and filing the wrong form can create problems down the line. For a group whose income swings a lot (a big raffle year followed by a quiet year), track your gross receipts for all three years and do the average yourself before assuming you can file the e-Postcard. If you're right at the edge, it's worth reading through 990-n and form 990-n so you understand exactly how the averaging works, and confirm your specific situation with the IRS or a qualified preparer if the numbers are close.
What does a treasurer do?
A treasurer is the volunteer (or occasionally paid) officer responsible for an organization's money: tracking it, reporting it, protecting it, and making sure the group meets its legal and financial obligations. In a booster club or PTO, that's rarely a ceremonial title. It's real work with real deadlines. What do treasurers do, concretely, over the course of a year? They keep the checkbook or bank account reconciled monthly. They record every deposit and expense with enough detail that someone else could reconstruct what happened. They prepare (or gather documents for) whatever tax filing the organization owes, whether that's a 990-N, 990-EZ, or full 990. They present a treasurer's report at board meetings, usually a simple income-and-expense summary plus a bank balance. They often handle cash from fundraisers, gate admissions, concession stands, and raffles, which means they're also the person responsible for basic cash-handling controls. What does a treasurer do in a club specifically, versus a company? The core job is the same, but the stakes and resources are different. A corporate treasurer usually has an accounting department and audit committee behind them. A club treasurer of a 40-family youth soccer booster group is often a volunteer with a day job, doing this in evenings and weekends, sometimes taking over from a predecessor who left no notes. That's a very different working reality, and it's why so many of these organizations end up behind on filings, not because anyone did anything wrong, but because nobody had time to learn the rules before they were thrown into the role.
What does a club treasurer do that's different from a company treasurer?
A club treasurer, whether for a PTO, a booster club, or a rec league, usually wears several hats a corporate treasurer would never touch alone: bookkeeper, tax filer, internal auditor, and sometimes fundraising cashier all at once. What does a treasurer of a club do day to day? Realistically, the job breaks into four buckets: 1. Bookkeeping: recording deposits, expenses, and reconciling the bank statement every month, more than at year-end. 2. Reporting: giving the board (and often parents at a general meeting) a clear picture of income and spending. 3. Compliance: filing the right IRS form on time, keeping state charitable registration current, and handling raffle or gaming licenses if the group runs them. 4. Controls: making sure no single person (including the treasurer) has unchecked access to cash, which usually means two-signature checks, dual counts of event cash, and a second set of eyes on deposits. The compliance bucket is where most new club treasurers get surprised. Nobody warned them that a 501(c)(3) with under $50,000 in gross receipts still has to file something every single year, even if that something is just the 990-N postcard. Skipping it feels harmless until year three, when the exemption disappears automatically.
What happens if we file late or skip a year?
A single late 990-EZ usually just means a note in the file and, depending on circumstances, a possible penalty. But skip three consecutive years and the consequence is automatic and severe: the IRS revokes your tax-exempt status by operation of law, no warning letter required beyond the missed filings themselves. The statute is specific. Under Internal Revenue Code section 6033(j), an organization required to file an annual return or notice that fails to do so "for 3 consecutive years" has its tax-exempt status "revoked on and after the date set by the Secretary for the filing of the third annual return or notice" [4]. The IRS confirms this applies across 990-N, 990-EZ, and the full 990: three consecutive missed years, automatic revocation, no appeal process for the revocation itself [4]. Once revoked, the organization owes income tax on its revenue going forward (unless and until exemption is reinstated), donors can't deduct contributions made after the effective revocation date, and the group's name shows up on the IRS Auto-Revocation List, which grant funders and school districts sometimes check before writing checks. Reinstatement is possible but requires a new exemption application (Form 1023 or 1023-EZ for many small groups) and, depending on how long it's been, a reasonable-cause statement to try to get retroactive reinstatement instead of a new effective date [5]. That process alone can take months and cost real filing fees on top of whatever a preparer charges.
How do I know if we should file 990-EZ or the full 990 this year?
Run the two-threshold test every single year, even if you filed 990-EZ last year without issue. Growth can push you over the line quietly, especially after a big capital campaign, a large bequest, or a strong concession-stand season. Check gross receipts first: were they under $200,000 for the tax year? Then check total assets at year-end: were they under $500,000? If both are true, 990-EZ is allowed [1]. If either number is over the line, the full 990 is required, not optional. A few traps worth knowing about. Gross receipts generally means total revenue before subtracting costs, not net income; a raffle that grossed $60,000 in ticket sales but only netted $15,000 after prizes still counts the $60,000 toward your gross receipts total in most calculations (confirm the exact computation with the IRS instructions or a qualified preparer, since some categories of revenue are treated differently). Total assets include cash, investments, and any equipment or property the organization owns, even if it's not liquid. A booster club that owns a used equipment trailer and a modest reserve fund can hit the asset threshold faster than the receipts threshold, which surprises people.
What information do I actually need to fill out a 990-EZ?
Before opening the form, gather a full year's financial picture. Trying to fill out a 990-EZ from memory or scattered receipts is how errors creep in, and errors on a public tax filing are the kind of thing that follows an organization around (990s are public record and often get posted on GuideStar/Candid or requested directly). At minimum, pull together: a full-year income and expense statement, a balance sheet as of the last day of your fiscal year, a list of officers and directors with any compensation paid, a breakdown of fundraising events (gross revenue, direct expenses, net income for each major event), your EIN and confirmation of your exempt status determination letter, and prior-year returns if you have them (they make a huge difference as a template and for catching errors early). If your organization runs raffles or other gaming, you'll also need those numbers separated out for Schedule G, and you should already have whatever state gaming or raffle license paperwork was required (see raffles-by-state resources for your specific state's rules). Groups that keep this information organized year-round, rather than scrambling every spring, consistently file faster and with fewer corrections. This is exactly the kind of organizing problem a state-specific reference binder solves: BoosterLedger's $99 one-time Treasurer Kit builds a state-personalized packet of the forms, checklists, and record templates a new treasurer needs to keep this information ready before filing season, rather than hunting it down in April.
Can a volunteer treasurer file the 990-EZ themselves, or do we need an accountant?
Plenty of volunteer treasurers file 990-EZ themselves, and the IRS designs the form and instructions with that reality in mind. It's not the full 990 with its expanded governance disclosures; it's meant to be manageable without a CPA on staff. That said, "manageable" isn't the same as "trivial." A first-time filer, or a treasurer taking over mid-year from someone who left thin records, benefits enormously from either a template of last year's return or a short consultation with an accountant who's seen nonprofit filings before. Common mistakes include misclassifying gross receipts, forgetting Schedule A (which most 501(c)(3) public charities must attach to establish they're not private foundations), and reporting fundraising event revenue net instead of gross. If your organization's finances are simple (one bank account, a handful of fundraisers, no employees, no investments beyond a savings account), a careful volunteer can absolutely handle it using the official instructions [1] and IRS e-file system. If there's any complexity (real estate, significant investment income, related organizations, prior-year filing gaps), get a professional's eyes on it before submission. This is general information, not tax or legal advice, and every organization's facts differ enough that a real preparer or the IRS itself is the final word on your specific filing.
What's the deadline for filing Form 990-EZ?
Form 990-EZ is due on the 15th day of the 5th month after your organization's accounting period ends [1]. For a calendar-year organization (fiscal year ending December 31), that means the return is due May 15 of the following year. If your fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30, a common setup for school-affiliated booster clubs and PTOs, your 990-EZ deadline is November 15. Extensions are available: Form 8868 gives an automatic six-month extension when filed by the original due date [6]. That pushes a calendar-year filer's deadline to November 15, and a July-June fiscal year filer's deadline to May 15 of the following year. Mark this date in more than one place. Losing track of the fiscal year end date, especially after a treasurer handoff, is one of the most common reasons small nonprofits accidentally slide into the three-year revocation window described earlier. A simple shared calendar reminder, set for 60 days before the deadline, gives enough runway to gather documents even in a busy volunteer schedule.
What if our exempt status already got revoked?
First, check the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool to confirm the revocation and see the effective date; sometimes what looks like a lapse is a data lag or a name mismatch. If revocation is confirmed, the path back runs through the exemption application process again, not simply catching up on missed 990s. Small organizations (those that would have been eligible to file 990-N or 990-EZ) can often use the streamlined retroactive reinstatement process described in Revenue Procedure 2014-11, which allows reinstatement effective back to the original revocation date if the application is filed within 15 months of the revocation notice and includes a reasonable cause statement [5]. Organizations that miss that window, or that were required to file the full 990, generally face a harder path and may only get reinstatement effective from the new application date forward, with a gap period where the organization owed regular income tax. Either way, expect to file Form 1023 or 1023-EZ again (with its own fee, currently in the low hundreds of dollars depending on the form and confirmed at time of filing on irs.gov), write a reasonable cause statement explaining the lapse, and possibly file the delinquent returns for the missed years. This is a multi-month process even in the best case. Groups that catch a near-miss (two consecutive missed years) before the third one hits should treat that as an emergency, not a someday task.
Frequently asked questions
What is Form 990-EZ?
Form 990-EZ is the IRS's short-form annual information return for tax-exempt organizations with gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000 at year-end [1]. It's shorter than the full Form 990 but more detailed than the 990-N e-Postcard used by the smallest nonprofits.
What is Form 990?
Form 990 is the annual information return the IRS requires from most tax-exempt organizations, disclosing revenue, expenses, governance, and compensation. Which version an organization files (990-N, 990-EZ, full 990, or 990-PF) depends on its gross receipts and total assets each year [1][2].
What is the 990 tax form used for?
It's a public disclosure and compliance document, not an income tax bill. It shows the IRS and the public how a tax-exempt organization raised and spent money, who runs it, and whether it's still operating consistently with its exempt purpose.
What does a treasurer do in a club or PTO?
A club treasurer tracks income and expenses, reconciles the bank account monthly, prepares reports for the board, handles cash from fundraisers and events, and manages tax and state compliance filings, including whichever 990 version the organization's size requires.
What do treasurers do differently from other board officers?
Treasurers own the money side specifically: bookkeeping, financial reporting, and compliance filings. Other officers (president, secretary) handle governance and meeting records. In small clubs, treasurers often also handle cash-handling controls and raffle or gaming license paperwork.
Who has to file Form 990-EZ instead of 990-N?
Organizations with gross receipts normally over $50,000 but under $200,000, and total assets under $500,000, generally file 990-EZ rather than the 990-N e-Postcard [1][2]. Both size thresholds (receipts and assets) apply, and averaging over three years determines the 'normally' test for smaller filers.
What happens if a nonprofit misses three years of 990 filings?
The IRS automatically revokes tax-exempt status under Internal Revenue Code section 6033(j) after three consecutive missed years, with no separate notice or appeal of the revocation decision itself [3]. Reinstatement requires a new exemption application and often a reasonable cause statement.
When is Form 990-EZ due?
It's due the 15th day of the 5th month after the organization's fiscal year ends: May 15 for calendar-year filers, November 15 for July-June fiscal year filers. Form 8868 gives an automatic six-month extension if filed by the original deadline [6].
Can our booster club file 990-N one year and 990-EZ the next?
Yes, if your gross receipts and assets change enough to cross the thresholds. The determination is made fresh each year based on the actual numbers for that fiscal year (and the three-year average for 990-N eligibility), not a fixed choice made once.
Does a booster club have to file anything if it made under $5,000?
Generally yes. Most tax-exempt organizations, even very small ones, owe at minimum the 990-N e-Postcard each year unless they're specifically exempted (certain church-affiliated groups, for example). Confirm your specific group's requirement with the IRS or a qualified preparer.
What's the difference between the 990-EZ and the full Form 990?
The full 990 is longer, requires more governance and compensation detail, and applies once gross receipts hit $200,000 or total assets hit $500,000 [1]. The 990-EZ covers the same basic categories with less depth and fewer required schedules, for smaller organizations.
Do we need a CPA to file Form 990-EZ?
Not necessarily. Many volunteer treasurers file it themselves using IRS instructions, especially with simple finances (one bank account, a few fundraisers, no employees). Get professional help if your organization has investments, real estate, prior filing gaps, or any real complexity.
Is a booster club's Form 990-EZ public information?
Yes. Nonprofit 990 filings, including 990-EZ, are public record. They're often available through the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool and third-party sites like Candid/GuideStar, so accuracy matters beyond just IRS compliance.
Sources
- IRS, Instructions for Form 990-EZ: Gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000 threshold for 990-EZ eligibility, and filing deadline of 15th day of 5th month after year end
- IRS, Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations (Form 990-N): 990-N eligibility for organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less, using a three-year average
- 26 U.S.C. section 6033(j), Internal Revenue Code, Auto-revocation for failure to file for 3 consecutive years: Automatic revocation after three consecutive years of missed required filings under IRC section 6033(j)
- IRS, About Form 990-PF: Private foundations file Form 990-PF regardless of size
- IRS, Revenue Procedure 2014-11: Streamlined retroactive reinstatement process for small organizations filed within 15 months of revocation, with reasonable cause statement
- IRS, About Form 8868, Application for Extension of Time To File an Exempt Organization Return: Form 8868 gives an automatic six-month extension when filed by the original due date