Nonprofit 990 filing: what treasurers must file and when

Last updated 2026-07-24

what is form 990?

Form 990 is the annual information return the IRS requires from most tax-exempt organizations. It is not an income tax return in the way most people think of one. Your booster club probably owes no federal income tax, but the IRS still wants an annual report on your money: what came in, what went out, who got paid, and whether you're still operating the way your tax-exempt purpose requires. There isn't one single 990 form. There's a family of them, scaled to the size of the organization. A tiny youth sports booster club with $30,000 a year in gross receipts files a different version than a regional nonprofit with a paid staff and $2 million in revenue. The IRS explains the filing thresholds and forms on its Annual Exempt Organization Returns page ^[1]. Most 990 forms (990, 990-EZ, and 990-N) become public record once filed. Anyone, including parents, donors, and the local paper, can look up your organization's finances through the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool ^[2]. That transparency is part of the deal for getting tax-exempt status in the first place. See also our plain 990 tax form explainer and the general ^[990](/articles/treasurer-basics/990) overview if you want the short version before reading further.

what is a 990 tax form and which version do I file?

Normally $50,000 or less	any	Form 990-N (e-postcard)
Less than $200,000	Less than $500,000	Form 990-EZ (or full 990)
$200,000 or more, OR	$500,000 or more	Form 990 (full)	These thresholds come straight from the IRS instructions for Form 990 and 990-EZ [3]. "Gross receipts" is a specific IRS term. It's the total amount your organization received from all sources during the year before subtracting any costs or expenses, so a $10,000 raffle where you paid out $6,000 in prizes still counts as $10,000 of gross receipts, not $4,000. Most booster clubs, PTOs, and small youth sports groups land in the 990-N bucket. That's the free, five-minute filing sometimes called the 990n or form 990-n. If your group ran a big capital campaign or a major fundraiser that pushed you over $50,000 in gross receipts for the year, you'll need the 990-EZ instead, which asks for an actual income and expense statement. Group rulings and church-affiliated booster programs sometimes have different filing obligations. If your organization is part of a group exemption or is affiliated with a religious institution, confirm with the IRS and your state charity office before assuming the 990-N applies to you.

Which 990 you file depends almost entirely on your gross receipts and total assets for the year, not on how much cash you have sitting in the bank right now. The IRS sets three main tiers for organizations other than private foundations: | Annual gross receipts | Total assets | Form required |

what is the 990-N e-postcard and how do I file it?

The 990-N is the simplest version, built for organizations whose gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less. The IRS describes it plainly: organizations eligible to file the e-postcard "may choose to file a complete Form 990 or Form 990-EZ instead" but most just do the postcard. You file it online through the IRS's Form 990-N submission portal, not by mail ^[4]. It asks for basic identifying information: your EIN, tax year, legal name and mailing address, any other names the organization uses, the name and address of a principal officer, confirmation that gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less, and a statement that the organization hasn't terminated. There's no financial detail required, no balance sheet, no list of officers' compensation. That's the tradeoff for staying small: less paperwork, but also less of a public record trail if a future treasurer or board member wants to see historical financials. Keep your own internal records regardless of what the IRS requires, because the postcard alone won't tell the next treasurer anything about what actually happened financially that year. The due date is the 15th day of the 5th month after your accounting period ends. For a calendar-year organization (year ending December 31), that's May 15 of the following year ^[4]. Miss that date and there's technically no monetary penalty for a late 990-N by itself, but three consecutive missed years triggers automatic revocation, covered below.

what happens if my club has never filed a 990?

This happens constantly with volunteer-run booster clubs and PTOs. A founding treasurer got the group its EIN and maybe even tax-exempt status years ago, then moved away, and nobody after them realized annual filing was required. The group assumes that because it's small and volunteer-run, the IRS doesn't care. The IRS does care, at least on paper. Start by checking your status on the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool ^[2]. Search your organization's name or EIN. If you see "Auto-Revoked," your exemption is gone and you're treated as a taxable entity until you fix it. If you show up as active and in good standing, you're probably fine, but check your last-filed 990 date to see how far behind you actually are. If you've genuinely never filed and you're not yet revoked, catch up as soon as possible. File the correct form for each missed year using that year's gross receipts to figure out which version applies (a group might have been 990-N-eligible in 2021 but crossed into 990-EZ territory in 2023). The IRS's prior-year forms and instructions are archived on its forms and instructions page ^[5]. If you can't reconstruct old financial records well enough to file accurately, don't guess numbers and hope. Note it as an estimate internally, file what you can support, and move forward with better bookkeeping. A booster club with no formal accounting is not unusual; that's exactly the gap a State-Personalized Treasurer Kit is built to close, since it walks new treasurers through setting up the recordkeeping the IRS actually expects going forward.

what triggers irs auto-revocation and how do I know if it happened?

The rule is blunt: fail to file a required 990-series return for three consecutive years, and your tax-exempt status is automatically revoked as of the filing due date of the third year. This isn't a warning system with escalating notices, it's automatic under federal law. The statutory basis is section 6033(j) of the Internal Revenue Code, added by the Pension Protection Act of 2006, and the IRS explains it directly: "the law automatically revokes the tax-exempt status of organizations that do not file required returns or notices for three consecutive years" . The IRS publishes an Auto-Revocation List that anyone can search . If your organization is on it, you're currently not tax-exempt at the federal level, meaning any income could technically be taxable and donors can no longer deduct gifts to you as charitable contributions. The fix is called reinstatement, and the IRS lays out the process in Revenue Procedure 2014-11 . Depending on when you apply and your organization's size, you may qualify for streamlined retroactive reinstatement (generally for organizations that were eligible to file the 990-N or 990-EZ and apply within 15 months of revocation), or you may need to file a full Form 1023 or 1023-EZ application with a request for retroactive relief and a reasonable-cause statement. There's a real cost here beyond paperwork. The 1023-EZ filing fee is $275 as of this writing, and the full Form 1023 fee is $600 . Fees change, so confirm current amounts on the IRS's Form 1023 filing fee page before you apply. Budget time too: reinstatement isn't instant, and your group operates in exempt limbo while it's pending.

what does a treasurer do?

A treasurer is the officer responsible for a nonprofit's money: tracking what comes in, what goes out, keeping records straight, and making sure the organization meets its financial and reporting obligations. In a volunteer-run booster club or PTO, that job usually falls on one parent with a spreadsheet and good intentions, not a finance department. Day to day, what does a treasurer do? Concretely: deposit and record fundraiser proceeds, pay vendors and reimburse volunteers, reconcile the bank statement every month, keep receipts organized, and present a written financial report at board meetings. Annually, the treasurer (or whoever the board assigns) makes sure the 990-series return gets filed on time, renews any state charitable registration, and helps prepare for a transition if a new treasurer takes over. What does a treasurer do in a club specifically, as opposed to a larger nonprofit? Usually less complexity but the same core duties. A club treasurer often handles a checking account, a small savings account, cash from concession stands or car washes, and maybe a raffle or two, all without professional bookkeeping software. The stakes feel lower because the dollar amounts are smaller, but the IRS and state filing deadlines apply the same way to a $15,000-budget booster club as they do to a $150,000 one. So what does a club treasurer do that a general nonprofit treasurer doesn't? Not much, structurally. The differences are more about scale and formality: fewer committees, more informal recordkeeping, and often no separate bookkeeper or accountant to double-check the work. That makes the treasurer's own habits (saving every receipt, reconciling monthly, writing things down before memory fades) the entire control system.

what is a treasurer and what do treasurers do all year (a month-by-month view)

Monthly	Reconcile bank statement, record all deposits and disbursements, update budget vs. actual
Quarterly	Report to the board on finances, review outstanding reimbursements
Before major fundraisers	Confirm any raffle or gaming license requirements with your state (see below)
Annually (varies)	State charitable solicitation registration renewal, if applicable
May 15 (calendar-year orgs)	Form 990-N, 990-EZ, or 990 due to the IRS [4]
End of term	Full handoff packet to incoming treasurer: bank access, records, filing history	This is the part that surprises new treasurers most: the job isn't dramatic, it's repetitive. Missing a single monthly reconciliation isn't a disaster. Missing three straight years of 990 filings is. The whole discipline of the role is doing the small boring task consistently enough that the big annual ones aren't scary.

What is a treasurer, in the simplest terms? The person the board and members trust to handle the organization's cash and tell the truth about where it went. What do treasurers do across a full year looks less like one big task and more like a repeating monthly rhythm plus a few annual deadlines. A rough calendar for a calendar-year booster club or PTO: | Month | Typical treasurer task |

does a small booster club or PTO really have to file anything with the IRS?

Yes, almost always, if the organization has its own EIN and tax-exempt status (or is supposed to). The common misconception is that "we're small" or "we're all-volunteer" exempts you from filing. It doesn't. The 990-N exists specifically because Congress and the IRS wanted even the smallest tax-exempt groups to have to check in annually, even if the check-in takes five minutes. There are narrow exceptions. Some organizations, including certain church-related groups and some government instrumentalities, are not required to file annual returns at all. If your booster club or PTO is legally separate from the school district (most are, and should be, for liability reasons) and holds its own 501(c)(3) or is applying for one, assume the 990-series filing requirement applies unless the IRS or your accountant tells you otherwise. Also worth checking: whether your organization is covered by a group exemption held by a national parent body (some PTA state organizations or booster federations operate this way). If so, filing responsibilities may run through the parent organization rather than your local chapter alone. Confirm with the IRS and, if relevant, your state's parent organization about how your group's filing obligation actually works before assuming either way. One more wrinkle: filing the 990 series is a federal requirement. Many states separately require charitable organizations to register with the state attorney general's office or a state charities bureau before soliciting donations, and to renew that registration annually, often with its own financial reporting. That's a separate obligation from the IRS 990. Confirm with your state charity office (usually housed in the attorney general's office) whether your club needs to register.

what records does a treasurer need to actually complete the 990?

You can't file an accurate 990-EZ or full 990 without decent books. Even the 990-N, despite asking for no financial detail, requires you to know your gross receipts number to confirm eligibility. At minimum, a treasurer should maintain, all year, not scrambled together in April: a running ledger of every deposit and expense with dates and descriptions, monthly bank reconciliations, receipts or invoices for every expense over a threshold you set (many small nonprofits use $25 or $50), a list of any individuals paid more than incidental amounts for services, and records of any raffle, auction, or gaming revenue separated from regular fundraiser income since some states tax or license those differently. If your group crosses into 990-EZ territory, you'll also need a simple statement of revenue and expenses by category (program fundraisers, membership dues, concessions, etc.) and a balance sheet showing assets and liabilities at year start and year end. None of this requires accounting software or a CPA for a typical small booster club, but it does require consistency. A shoebox of receipts sorted in December is much harder to turn into an accurate 990 than a spreadsheet updated monthly. This is also where handoffs go wrong most often. A treasurer who kept perfect records in their head, with no written system, leaves the group and takes that knowledge with them. Building a simple, repeatable filing habit protects the next person as much as it protects this year's compliance.

what's the difference between the 990-N, 990-EZ, and full 990 in practice?

Beyond the gross receipts thresholds already covered, the practical difference is how much financial detail becomes public. The full 990, sometimes called the irs form 990, asks for a detailed statement of functional expenses, compensation disclosures for officers and highest-paid employees, and a governance section covering board size, conflict of interest policies, and whether the organization has written whistleblower and document retention policies. The 990-EZ is a scaled-down middle ground: still a real financial statement, still public, but without the governance narrative sections of the full form. It's the version most mid-sized booster clubs and PTOs use once they cross $50,000 in gross receipts but stay under $200,000. The 990-N asks for almost nothing beyond your identifying information and a receipts confirmation, and none of it becomes a searchable financial record the way the other two do. One practical note: once you're required to file the 990-EZ or full 990, you generally have to keep filing that tier (or higher) in subsequent years unless your gross receipts genuinely drop back down and stay down. Don't assume you can flip back to the easy postcard just because one slow year brought receipts under $50,000; check the specific instructions for the year in question, since the IRS looks at averages over a period in some cases, not a single year in isolation ^[3].

how do state raffle and charity rules interact with the 990?

The 990 is federal. Most states run a completely separate system for charitable gambling (raffles, bingo, casino nights) and for charitable solicitation registration, and treasurers often assume filing the 990 covers everything. It doesn't. If your booster club runs a raffle, most states require a specific raffle or charitable gaming license, sometimes tied to your nonprofit's tenure (some states require the organization to have existed for a minimum period, often one to three years, before it can hold a raffle license). Rules, fees, and prize limits vary enormously by state, so confirm with your state's charity office, attorney general, or gaming commission before running a raffle, rather than assuming a nearby state's rules apply to you. Separately, many states require charitable organizations soliciting donations from residents to register annually with the state, often through the attorney general's charities bureau, sometimes with its own financial threshold and its own late-filing consequences. This registration is independent of the federal 990-series requirement, and losing IRS tax-exempt status through auto-revocation doesn't automatically deregister you at the state level, or vice versa. Treat them as two separate compliance tracks that happen to often need the same underlying financial records.

Frequently asked questions

What is Form 990?

Form 990 is the annual information return most tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS, reporting income, expenses, and governance details. It replaces a federal income tax return for organizations that generally owe no income tax. Small organizations file the simplified 990-N; larger ones file the 990-EZ or full 990, based on gross receipts and total assets ^[1][3].

What is the 990 tax form used for?

It lets the IRS and the public see whether a tax-exempt organization is still operating consistent with its exempt purpose and reporting its finances honestly. Since most 990-series filings are public record, donors, parents, and journalists can look up an organization's filings through the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool ^[2].

Does every nonprofit have to file a 990?

Almost every tax-exempt organization must file some version annually, even ones with $0 in taxable income. A few exceptions exist for certain church-related organizations and government instrumentalities. Confirm your specific situation with the IRS, since assuming your small club is exempt from filing is the most common mistake new treasurers make.

What is a treasurer?

A treasurer is the officer of a nonprofit or club responsible for its money: recording deposits and expenses, reconciling accounts, reporting finances to the board, and making sure required filings like the 990-series return happen on time. In a volunteer-run booster club or PTO, it's usually one parent handling all of this.

What does a treasurer do in a club versus a larger nonprofit?

The core duties are the same: track money in and out, reconcile the bank account, report to the board, file required returns. A club treasurer usually handles smaller amounts with less formal systems and no dedicated bookkeeper, which puts more weight on the treasurer's own personal habits and recordkeeping consistency.

What happens if a booster club never files a 990?

Nothing happens immediately after one missed year, but three consecutive missed years triggers automatic revocation of tax-exempt status under IRC section 6033(j) ^[8]. Once revoked, the organization is listed on the IRS Auto-Revocation List ^[9] and must apply for reinstatement, which can cost $275 to $600 in filing fees depending on the method ^[11].

How do I know if my organization's tax-exempt status was auto-revoked?

Search your organization's name or EIN on the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool ^[2]. If it shows "Auto-Revoked," your federal exemption is gone until you complete the reinstatement process described in Revenue Procedure 2014-11 ^[10]. Check this annually even if you believe you've been filing on time.

What's the deadline for filing Form 990-N?

The 15th day of the 5th month after your organization's accounting period ends. For a calendar-year organization ending December 31, that's May 15 of the following year ^[6]. There's no extension available for the 990-N itself, though larger 990/990-EZ filers can request an automatic 6-month extension using Form 8868.

Can I file Form 990-N myself, or do I need an accountant?

Most treasurers file the 990-N themselves through the IRS's online e-postcard system in a few minutes, no accountant needed ^[5]. The 990-EZ and full 990 involve more detailed financial statements; many small nonprofits still self-file, but if your organization crosses into 990-EZ territory or has complicated finances, a nonprofit-experienced tax preparer is worth the cost.

What's the difference between gross receipts and net income for 990 purposes?

Gross receipts means everything your organization received during the year before subtracting any expenses. A raffle that brought in $10,000 and paid out $6,000 in prizes still counts as $10,000 in gross receipts for determining which 990 form you must file, not $4,000.

Does filing a 990 mean I don't need a state charitable registration?

No. The 990-series is a federal filing with the IRS. Many states separately require charitable organizations to register with a state charities office or attorney general before soliciting donations, and to renew that registration annually. Confirm with your specific state charity office, since these are two independent obligations.

What is a club treasurer responsible for on raffle nights?

Beyond the usual cash-handling and recording duties, a club treasurer running a raffle typically needs to confirm the organization holds any required state raffle or charitable gaming license, track prize values and ticket revenue separately from regular fundraising, and keep records that satisfy both the state gaming agency and the eventual 990 filing.

What if our booster club's gross receipts vary a lot year to year?

The IRS instructions for the 990-EZ and 990-N describe eligibility using terms like "normally" a certain amount, which can involve averaging over a period rather than a single year's number. If your receipts hover near a threshold, review the current-year IRS instructions carefully or confirm with a nonprofit tax preparer before assuming which form applies ^[3].

Sources

1. IRS, Tax Exempt Organization Search: Public tool to check an organization's exempt status and filing history, including auto-revocation status
2. IRS, Instructions for Form 990 and Form 990-EZ: Gross receipts and total asset thresholds determining which version of Form 990 an organization must file
3. IRS, Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations (Form 990-N): Organizations eligible to file the e-postcard may choose to file a complete Form 990 or 990-EZ instead
4. IRS, Automatic Revocation of Exemption: The law automatically revokes tax-exempt status for organizations that fail to file required returns for three consecutive years
5. IRS, Revenue Procedure 2014-11: Sets out procedures, including streamlined retroactive reinstatement, for organizations seeking to regain tax-exempt status after automatic revocation