Last updated 2026-07-24
TL;DR
Since 2019, the IRS requires electronic filing for all Form 990 series returns, including the 990-N postcard for small groups under $50,000 in gross receipts. There's no paper option anymore. Deadline is the 15th day of the 5th month after your fiscal year ends, usually November 15 for calendar-year groups.
What is Form 990?
Form 990 is the annual information return that tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS. It's not a tax bill in the usual sense (most booster clubs and PTOs owe nothing), it's a disclosure document. The IRS uses it to confirm your group is still operating within the rules that earned it tax-exempt status, and the public can use it to see how much money came in, how it was spent, and who's running things. There are three versions, sized to your organization's revenue. Form 990-N (the "e-Postcard") is for organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less. Form 990-EZ is for groups with gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000. The full Form 990 is for anything bigger. [1] Most volunteer-run booster clubs, PTOs, and youth sports groups fall into the 990-N bucket. If your group had one good fundraising year that pushed you over $50,000, you'll need to step up to the 990-EZ or full 990 for that year, even if you drop back down the next year. Confirm your specific threshold and filing category with the IRS before you file, since gross receipts calculations have quirks (they're based on a rolling average in some cases, more than the current year). [1] For a plain-language rundown of what's actually on each form, see our guide to Form 990 and the difference between the 990 tax form versions.
Why does 990 electronic filing matter now?
Because there's no other option. The Taxpayer First Act of 2019 mandated electronic filing for all Form 990-series returns, and the IRS phased out paper filing for most organizations over the following two tax years. As of the 2021 filing season, electronic filing is required for Form 990, 990-EZ, 990-PF, and 990-N. [1] The practical effect: if you're a new treasurer who inherited a folder of paper printouts and figures you'll just mail one in like your predecessor supposedly did in 2015, that approach doesn't work anymore. The IRS will reject or simply never receive a mailed 990-EZ or full 990 filed on paper for a tax year where e-filing is required. Some limited exceptions exist (for example, certain organizations can request a waiver from the e-file requirement for undue hardship), but that's the exception, not the plan. [1] The upside for a volunteer treasurer is that e-filing, especially the 990-N, is genuinely fast once you know where to go. The IRS's own postcard system takes most filers under 10 minutes if you have your EIN and basic org info ready.
How do you file the 990-N electronically?
You file Form 990-N through the IRS's own online portal, not through third-party tax software, and there's no fee to file it. You'll need your organization's EIN, tax year, legal name and any doing-business-as name, mailing address, the name and address of a principal officer, and confirmation your gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less. [2] The form asks eight basic questions. You submit it and the system tells you within moments whether it was accepted or rejected. Rejections usually mean an EIN mismatch or that IRS records don't yet reflect your org's exempt status correctly. If you're rejected repeatedly, that's often a sign something upstream is wrong (like your organization isn't actually registered as tax-exempt, or your EIN was set up incorrectly). One detail treasurers miss: you register for an account, but you're filing on behalf of the organization, not yourself. Keep the login credentials with your treasurer transition documents so next year's volunteer isn't locked out. See our 990-N and Form 990-N pages for a walkthrough of the actual screens.
How do you e-file Form 990-EZ or the full Form 990?
You can't file these directly through the free IRS portal the way you do with the 990-N. Instead, you need to use an IRS-authorized e-file provider, which is commercial software (or a tax preparer using that software) that transmits your return to the IRS electronically. The IRS maintains a list of approved providers for exempt organization returns. [3] Costs vary widely. Some providers charge under $100 for a straightforward 990-EZ for a small nonprofit; others charge several hundred dollars, especially for the full Form 990 with its schedules (Schedule A for public charity status, Schedule B for contributors, Schedule G for fundraising events, and so on). If your booster club runs raffles, concessions, or a golf tournament, expect to fill out at least one or two schedules beyond the base form. If your treasurer team isn't comfortable navigating tax software, this is one of the few spots where paying a bookkeeper or accountant for a couple hours of help is money well spent, especially the first year you cross the 990-EZ threshold. A single filing error (like misclassifying program revenue vs. contributions) can trigger IRS correspondence that eats a volunteer's entire fall semester.
When is the Form 990 deadline?
The 990-series return is due on the 15th day of the 5th month after your organization's accounting period ends. For a calendar-year organization (fiscal year ending December 31), that's May 15. For a group with a fiscal year ending June 30, common for schools and PTOs, the deadline is November 15. [4] If that date falls on a weekend or federal holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day. You can request an automatic 6-month extension by filing Form 8868 before your original deadline, which pushes a May 15 deadline to November 15, for example. Note that Form 990-N does not get an extension; there's nothing to extend since it's just a confirmation, though there's also technically no penalty for filing it late in a given year (the real danger, covered below, is not filing at all for three straight years). [5] Mark your deadline the day you take over as treasurer, not the week before it's due. Booster club fiscal years are notoriously inconsistent (some run July to June to match the school year, some run calendar year), and a surprising number of auto-revocations trace back to a new treasurer simply not knowing which deadline applied to their group.
What is a treasurer, and what does this have to do with filing?
A treasurer is the volunteer (or occasionally paid staff member) responsible for an organization's money: tracking income and expenses, keeping bank accounts reconciled, reporting financials to the board, and making sure the group meets its legal filing obligations. In a booster club, PTO, or youth sports league, the treasurer is usually the only person who touches both the checkbook and the paperwork. What does a treasurer do day to day? Deposits and records fundraising income, pays vendors and reimburses volunteers, reconciles the bank statement monthly, prepares a budget-to-actual report for board meetings, and keeps receipts organized for the eventual audit or handoff to the next treasurer. What does a club treasurer do that's different from a corporate one? Mostly scale and formality: club treasurers often work with no paid staff, no accounting software beyond a spreadsheet, and a rotating cast of volunteers who don't always know last year's decisions. What does a treasurer of a club do specifically around the 990? They're the one who has to know the organization's EIN, its fiscal year end, its gross receipts total, and whether last year's 990 (in whatever form) got filed. If nobody currently knows the answer to "did we file last year," that's the first thing to sort out, because the consequences of three missed years are severe (covered in the next section).
What happens if you don't e-file your 990 for three years?
The IRS automatically revokes tax-exempt status for any organization that fails to file a required 990-series return (including the 990-N) for three consecutive years. This isn't a warning system with lots of notices; it's an automatic statutory trigger under Internal Revenue Code section 6033(j). Once revoked, your organization is treated as a taxable entity going forward and loses the ability to receive tax-deductible donations. Your name shows up on the IRS's Tax Exempt Organization Search as "revoked." For a booster club that depends on parent donations and corporate sponsor matching, this is a real problem, not a paperwork technicality: donors who want a tax deduction, and companies running matching-gift programs, will check your status before writing a check. The fix is filing for reinstatement, usually via Form 1023 or 1023-EZ (depending on size) along with the past-due 990s, and in many cases you can request retroactive reinstatement if you apply within 15 months of the revocation date and show reasonable cause for the missed filings. This process is real work, often a few weeks of gathering old records and writing a reasonable cause statement, and there's no guarantee the IRS grants retroactive status. Treat the three-year clock as a hard deadline you never want to test.
What information do you need before you sit down to file?
| EIN (Employer Identification Number) | Required to identify your org to the IRS | |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal year start/end dates | Determines your filing deadline | |
| Legal organization name and any DBA | Must match IRS records exactly | |
| Gross receipts for the year | Determines which form (990-N, EZ, or full) applies | |
| Total assets at year end | Relevant for 990-EZ threshold | |
| Principal officer name and address | Required field on all versions | |
| Prior year's filed return (if any) | Helps confirm continuity and catch gaps | If you don't know your EIN or can't find last year's filing, the IRS's Tax Exempt Organization Search tool lets you look up an organization's filing history and current status for free. This is the first stop for any new treasurer trying to figure out where things stand. |
Gather these before you start, whether you're doing a 990-N or the full form: | Item | Why you need it |
What does a treasurer do beyond just filing the 990?
Filing the 990 is one task in a much longer job description. A booster club or PTO treasurer typically also handles: opening and maintaining the bank account, setting up basic bookkeeping (even a simple spreadsheet works for small groups), managing petty cash and reimbursements, tracking restricted funds (money raised for a specific team or purpose that can't be spent elsewhere), preparing financial reports for board and general membership meetings, and coordinating with whoever handles raffle or gaming licenses if your group runs those. What do treasurers do around cash specifically? Good practice includes a two-person count for any cash box after an event, deposit slips that match register tapes or ticket counts, and a written reimbursement policy so nobody's guessing what needs a receipt. None of this shows up directly on the 990, but sloppy cash handling is exactly what makes filing an accurate 990 hard later, because you can't report income and expenses accurately if the underlying records are a mess. What a treasurer does, in short, is make sure the group's money is trackable, defensible, and reported on time. The 990 is the yearly proof of that work, not the whole job.
Can someone other than the treasurer file the 990?
Yes. Many booster clubs designate the treasurer as the person who prepares and submits the return, but any authorized officer, or an outside preparer (bookkeeper, CPA, or enrolled agent) working from the organization's records, can file it. What matters is that someone with signature authority reviews it before it goes in, since the person filing is attesting the information is accurate. If your board is small and everyone wears multiple hats, it's common for the treasurer to compile the numbers and the president or another officer to be listed as the principal officer of record. Just make sure whoever's name and contact info goes on the form is someone who'll actually still be reachable if the IRS has a question six months later. A common failure mode: a graduating parent files the 990 in June listing themselves as principal officer, then is unreachable by the fall when the next issue comes up.
What's the easiest way to keep this from becoming a crisis every year?
Build a repeatable, written process, because booster club and PTO leadership turns over constantly, often every one to three years, and whatever's in someone's head disappears when they leave. Write down your EIN, fiscal year, filing threshold, deadline, and login credentials for the 990-N portal (or the name of whoever handles your EZ/full filing) in a document that gets handed to the next treasurer, more than remembered. This is the exact gap a lot of booster clubs fall into: the founding treasurer knew all this, filed for three or four years, then moved on, and nobody wrote it down. A State-Personalized Treasurer Kit ($99 one-time) is built around exactly this problem: it bundles your state's specific filing thresholds, raffle licensing rules, and a handoff checklist so the next volunteer isn't starting from zero. It's not a substitute for an accountant on complicated years, but for the routine annual 990-N or basic 990-EZ, having the checklist already built saves the panicked Google session every fall. Whatever system you use, put the deadline on a shared calendar with at least two officers as owners, more than one. Volunteer treasurers get busy, move, or step down mid-year, and a filing deadline that lives in only one inbox is a filing deadline that gets missed.
Where do you go for help if you're stuck?
Start with the IRS's own Charities and Nonprofits section of irs.gov, which has separate pages for the 990-N, the 990-EZ, and the full 990, along with the current list of authorized e-file providers. [3] The IRS also runs a toll-free number for exempt organization questions, and many state attorney general charity offices publish their own guidance for nonprofits operating in that state, since state charitable registration is often a separate requirement from the federal 990. This article isn't tax or legal advice, and BoosterLedger isn't an accounting or law firm. For anything beyond a straightforward 990-N, or if your organization has missed filings and is facing auto-revocation, it's worth a paid hour with a CPA who works with nonprofits, or a call to the IRS Exempt Organizations customer account services line. Confirm your specific filing category, deadline, and any state-level charity registration requirement with the IRS and your state charity office directly, since thresholds and rules do change.
Frequently asked questions
What is Form 990?
Form 990 is the annual information return tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS, showing income, expenses, and governance details. It comes in three sizes based on gross receipts and assets: the 990-N postcard for the smallest groups, the 990-EZ for mid-size groups, and the full Form 990 for larger organizations. [1]
What is the 990 tax form used for?
It's used by the IRS and the public to check that a tax-exempt organization is still operating within the rules of its exemption. It's an information return, not a bill; most small booster clubs and PTOs owe no tax, but they still must file to keep their exempt status active. [1]
What does a treasurer do in a club?
A club treasurer manages the bank account, records income and expenses, reconciles statements, reports finances to the board, and handles required filings like the 990. In booster clubs and PTOs, the treasurer is usually the sole link between day-to-day money handling and the group's legal and tax obligations.
What does a treasurer do that's different from other officers?
Unlike the president or secretary, the treasurer has direct authority over funds: deposits, disbursements, reimbursements, and reconciliation. Other officers vote on how money gets spent; the treasurer makes sure it actually gets recorded, reported, and reconciled accurately, and flags when filings like the 990 come due.
Can you e-file Form 990-N for free?
Yes. Form 990-N is filed directly through the IRS's own online e-Postcard system at no cost. You need your EIN, tax year, legal name, mailing address, and a principal officer's name and address. Larger returns (990-EZ or full 990) require third-party IRS-authorized e-file software instead. [3][4]
What happens if a nonprofit misses the 990 deadline?
A single late filing usually doesn't end tax-exempt status, though it can trigger IRS notices. The real danger is missing filings three years in a row: the IRS automatically revokes exempt status for any organization that fails to file for three consecutive years, per IRC section 6033(j). [7]
How do you know which 990 form your organization must file?
It's based on gross receipts and total assets for the year. Under $50,000 in gross receipts, file the 990-N. Under $200,000 in receipts and under $500,000 in assets, file the 990-EZ. Above those, file the full Form 990. Confirm exact current thresholds with the IRS before filing. [1]
Is there a filing fee for Form 990?
The IRS does not charge a fee to file any version of the 990. If you use commercial e-file software for a 990-EZ or full 990, that software provider may charge a fee, commonly under $100 to a few hundred dollars depending on complexity, but the IRS itself charges nothing. [4]
What's the deadline to e-file the 990?
The 15th day of the 5th month after your fiscal year ends. Calendar-year organizations (year ending December 31) must file by May 15. Organizations with a June 30 fiscal year end (common for schools and PTOs) must file by November 15. A 6-month extension is available via Form 8868. [5][6]
Can a booster club lose its tax-exempt status over a missed 990?
Yes, but only after three consecutive missed years, triggering automatic revocation under IRC section 6033(j). A single missed year doesn't revoke status by itself, though it's worth fixing immediately rather than risking a second or third miss. Reinstatement after revocation requires a new exemption application and back filings. [7][8]
What does a club treasurer do if the group has never filed a 990?
First, check the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search to see if the group has an EIN and any filing history on record. If there's no history and the group has operated for years, get help from a CPA experienced with nonprofits before self-filing, since back-filing and reasonable-cause statements can be complicated. [9]
Do all nonprofits have to e-file, or is paper still allowed?
As of the 2021 filing season, electronic filing is required for essentially all Form 990-series returns (990, 990-EZ, 990-PF, and 990-N) under the Taxpayer First Act of 2019. Paper filing is no longer a routine option; limited hardship waivers exist but are the exception, not the rule. [2]
Sources
- IRS, Which Forms Do Exempt Organizations File: Gross receipts thresholds for 990-N, 990-EZ, and full 990 filing categories
- IRS, Form 990 Instructions: 990-series filing deadline is the 15th day of the 5th month after fiscal year end
- IRS, Form 8868: Automatic 6-month extension available for 990-series returns via Form 8868
- 26 U.S.C. section 6033(j): Automatic revocation of tax-exempt status after three consecutive years of failing to file required returns
- IRS, Tax Exempt Organization Search: Free tool to check an organization's EIN, filing history, and exempt status