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501(c)(3) Organizations
And Political Activities

Calculator

Welcome to the calculator page.

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Purpose of the Calculator

• Determine whether your organization has made excess lobbying expenditures for the year

• Determine whether your organization is at risk of losing its tax exemption due to excessive lobbying expenditures

• Calculate the allowable amount of lobbying expenditures for budgeting purposes

• Monitor lobbying expenses throughout the year to ensure expenditures stay within allowable limits

• Prepare a mock Form 990, Schedule C, Part II-A to help aid in preparation of your organization’s Form 990 filing obligation.

What You Will Need

In order to calculate the amount of allowable lobbying expenditures under the expenditure test, you will need the following information:

Your organization’s direct lobbying expenditures - Direct lobbying expenditures are expenditures made for the purpose to influence any legislation through communication with any member or employee of a legislative body or with a government official or employee who may participate in the formulation of the legislation. In order to constitute a lobbying expenditure, the communication must refer to specific legislation and express a view on such legislation.

Your organization’s grass roots lobbying expenditures – Grass roots lobbying expenditures are expenditures made for the purpose to influence any legislation through an attempt to affect the opinions of the general public. Similar to direct lobbying expenditures, in order to constitute a grassroots lobbying expenditure, the communication must refer to specific legislation, reflect a view on such legislation, and encourage the recipient of the communication to take action with respect to such legislation.

Your organization’s other exempt purpose expenditures – Other exempt purpose expenditures are your organization’s total expenditures made to carry out its exempt purpose (other than lobbying expenditures).

Your organization’s Form 990 for the prior three years - In order to run the “normally makes” test, you will need you organization’s Form 990 for the prior three years. The calculation requires numbers from Schedule C, Part II-A.

Step-by-step

Click here to download the calculator.

1. Input the id of your charitable organization

2. Input the year for which you want to run the calculation

3. Input your organization’s other exempt purpose expenditures

4. Input your organization’s direct lobbying expenses

5. Input your organization’s grassroots lobbying expenses

6. For question 5, you will need to refer to Part II-A of Schedule C of your organization’s Form 990. Input the applicable line for the given year as provided.

Output

With your organization’s lobbying expenditures inputted, the program will calculate your organization’s lobbying expenditure limits. Under the “Expenditure Test” section, the program calculates whether your organization has made excess lobbying expenditures for the year and, if so, the tax on the excess expenditures. Under the “Normally Makes Test” section, the program calculates whether your organization is deemed to normally make lobbying expenditures or grassroots expenditures in excess of its ceiling amount. Under the “Form 990” tab, the program creates a mock Form 990, Schedule C, Part II-A which can help aid your organization in its Form 990 preparation.