Nonprofit tax form basics: what treasurers file each year

Last updated 2026-07-24

What is the nonprofit tax form?

When people say "the nonprofit tax form," they almost always mean the Form 990 series. It's the annual information return the IRS requires from most tax-exempt organizations, including 501(c)(3) booster clubs, PTOs, and youth sports leagues. It's not really a tax bill in the way a personal 1040 is. Most small nonprofits owe zero income tax. The 990 exists so the IRS (and the public) can see how much money came in, how it got spent, and whether the group is still operating like the tax-exempt organization it claims to be. There are four versions, and the one you file depends almost entirely on your gross receipts and assets for the year. Confusingly, they're all called "the 990" in casual conversation, which is why new treasurers get tripped up. The IRS's own instructions describe the series as "used by tax-exempt organizations, nonexempt charitable trusts, and section 527 political organizations to provide the IRS with the information required by section 6033."^[1] If your group has never filed anything, or the last treasurer just didn't know this existed, you're not alone. It's the single most common gap BoosterLedger sees in club handoffs: a new treasurer inherits a checkbook and a login nobody has used in two years.

What is Form 990?

990-N (e-postcard)	Normally ≤ $50,000	any	tiny booster clubs, small PTOs
990-EZ	< $200,000	< $500,000	mid-size boosters, larger PTOs
990 (full)	≥ $200,000	≥ $500,000	large athletic foundations, big PTO councils
990-PF	n/a (private foundations)	n/a	private foundations only	Source: IRS, "Which forms do exempt organizations file?"[3]

Form 990 is the full-length version, required for organizations with gross receipts of $200,000 or more, or total assets of $500,000 or more.^[2] It runs 12 pages plus schedules and asks for a full statement of revenue, expenses, functional expense allocation (program vs. management vs. fundraising), a list of officers and their compensation, and details on governance policies like conflict-of-interest rules. Most booster clubs and PTOs never touch this version. If your group is running a full 990 and the treasurer job just landed in your lap, that's a sign you probably need an accountant on retainer, more than a kit or a spreadsheet. The complexity jumps fast once you cross into 990 territory: functional expense allocation alone trips up volunteers who've never done nonprofit accounting. For reference on how the tiers work: | Form | Gross receipts | Assets | Typical filer |

What is the 990-N and who files it?

The 990-N, nicknamed the e-postcard, is the version almost every small booster club and PTO actually files. It's for organizations whose annual gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less.^[4] It's genuinely an eight-question online form, not a paper filing, and it takes maybe ten minutes once you have your EIN and basic org info ready. According to the IRS, organizations file it electronically through the IRS's Form 990-N (e-Postcard) system, and there's no paper alternative.^[4] You'll need your EIN, tax year, legal name and address, any other names the org uses, the name and address of a principal officer, and confirmation that gross receipts are still $50,000 or under. Here's the trap: 990-N has no extension option and no fee, which makes it feel low-stakes. But missing it isn't actually low-stakes, because of the three-year rule covered below. Treasurers who assume "it's just a postcard, who cares" are the ones who show up on this site later asking how to reverse an auto-revocation.

What is Form 990-EZ?

Form 990-EZ is the middle tier, for organizations with gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000 at year-end.^[2] It's four pages instead of twelve, still asks for a revenue and expense breakdown, a balance sheet, and information on officers, but skips a lot of the governance detail the full 990 requires. This is the form a mid-size booster club running a $80,000-a-year concession stand and equipment fund often lands on. It takes real bookkeeping discipline: you need clean records of revenue by source (concessions, raffle proceeds, membership dues, sponsorships) and expenses by category. If your group has ever wondered whether a bookkeeper is worth hiring, 990-EZ territory is usually where that math starts to make sense, at least for the annual filing crunch. Some states also require a copy of your 990 or 990-EZ (or a state-specific annual charitable filing) alongside your federal filing. Confirm with your state charity office what's required beyond the IRS form itself.

What does a treasurer do?

A treasurer is the volunteer (occasionally paid, in bigger nonprofits) responsible for the organization's money: tracking it, reporting on it, and making sure nobody, including well-meaning insiders, mishandles it. In a booster club or PTO, that means keeping the checkbook, reconciling the bank statement monthly, preparing a budget, presenting financial reports at meetings, and filing the annual tax form. The job is part bookkeeper, part compliance officer, part translator. Nobody on the board wants to read a general ledger; they want to know "how much do we have for the spring trip." The treasurer turns transactions into an answer to that question, and does it honestly even when the answer is bad news. Specific duties usually include: maintaining a checking (and sometimes savings) account, requiring two signers on checks over a set threshold, tracking cash from fundraisers and concessions with a count sheet and two counters, filing the annual 990-series form, keeping receipts and invoices for at least a few years, and handing off a clean set of records to the next treasurer. If your group runs raffles, the treasurer often also tracks the separate paperwork for state raffle licensing.

What is a treasurer, exactly, and what do treasurers do day to day?

Officially, a treasurer is an elected or appointed officer named in the organization's bylaws, with fiduciary duty to the organization's members and, for a 501(c)(3), to the public interest the tax exemption is meant to serve. Practically, it's whoever answers the question "can we afford this" faster than anyone else in the room. Day to day, that's less glamorous than it sounds. It's opening the mail for checks. It's texting the concession stand lead to remind them to bring the cash box straight to the bank, not home "just for tonight." It's reconciling Venmo or Zelle transfers against a spreadsheet because the club took payments three different ways this season. It's saying no to a purchase order that isn't in the approved budget, even when the person asking is the board president's spouse. Month to month, a reasonably organized treasurer spends maybe two to five hours on routine bookkeeping, more during fundraiser season, and a concentrated few hours once a year on the tax filing itself, assuming records were kept clean all year. The filing crunch is brutal when records weren't kept clean; that's usually a full weekend, not a few hours.

What does a treasurer do in a club, specifically for boosters and PTOs?

In a booster club or PTO context, the treasurer role narrows down to a fairly specific list. It's worth writing this down in your own bylaws so the next person isn't guessing: - Track every dollar in from dues, concessions, spirit wear sales, sponsorships, and fundraisers, with a receipt or deposit slip for each.

• Track every dollar out, ideally requiring a second signature or board approval above a set dollar threshold.
• Reconcile the bank account against the books every month, more than at year end.
• Present a written financial report at each board meeting: income, expenses, and current balance.
• Maintain a budget and flag when actual spending is drifting from it.
• File the annual 990-series form with the IRS by the deadline (the 15th day of the 5th month after the fiscal year ends, so May 15 for a calendar-year filer).^[5]
• Keep the organization's exempt status current with the state, if your state requires separate charitable registration; confirm with your state charity office.
• Hand off clean, complete records (bank statements, the EIN, prior tax filings, the bylaws) to the incoming treasurer. A lot of clubs skip the middle items and only remember the tax form exists in April, in a panic. That's backwards. The filing is easy if the bookkeeping was done right all year; it's a nightmare if it wasn't.

What does a club treasurer do that's different from a corporate treasurer?

A corporate treasurer manages cash flow, debt, and investment strategy for a company with paid staff and often millions in assets. A club treasurer for a PTO or booster group is almost always an unpaid volunteer managing a checking account, a fundraiser calendar, and one annual tax filing, with zero staff support. The stakes are different but not smaller in relative terms. A $15,000 booster club account is the entire operating budget for a season of uniforms, equipment, and travel. Losing track of $500 in cash from a concession stand is proportionally a much bigger deal than a corporate treasurer misplacing a rounding error. The other real difference: club treasurers turn over constantly, often every one to two years, as kids graduate and parents rotate off the board. That churn is exactly why the IRS auto-revocation problem is so common in this world. Nobody handed off the login. Nobody remembered the 990-N was due. Three years pass. Status gets revoked. The next section covers exactly how that happens and what to do about it.

What happens if you don't file the 990? (the three-year auto-revocation rule)

This is the single highest-stakes fact in this whole article: if an organization required to file a 990-series return fails to file for three consecutive years, the IRS automatically revokes its tax-exempt status, by law, with no separate notice process required beyond the filing itself. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 added this rule, codified at 26 U.S.C. § 6033(j).^[6] The IRS states it plainly: "Under the Pension Protection Act of 2006, most tax-exempt organizations are required to file an annual return or notice with the IRS. Organizations that fail to file the required return or notice for three consecutive years will automatically lose their tax-exempt status."^[7] This catches booster clubs and PTOs constantly, precisely because of the volunteer-turnover problem described above. A treasurer files the 990-N faithfully for years, then hands off to someone who doesn't know it exists, and three tax years later the group is on the IRS's Auto-Revocation List without anyone realizing it happened. Donations made after the revocation date are no longer tax-deductible to the donor, which is often how groups find out (a parent's accountant asks why their receipt doesn't work). Recovery is possible through retroactive reinstatement, generally by filing Form 1023 (or 1023-EZ if eligible) again along with the delinquent returns, and in many cases requesting relief under Revenue Procedure 2014-11 for organizations that qualify. It's not free (the current Form 1023 filing fee is $600, and 1023-EZ is $275, per the IRS fee schedule), and it's not instant. Confirm current fees and eligibility with the IRS before assuming which path applies to your group.

When is the 990 due, and can you get an extension?

The 990-series return is due on the 15th day of the 5th month after your organization's accounting period ends.^[5] For a calendar-year filer (fiscal year ending December 31), that's May 15. For a fiscal year ending June 30, it's November 15. An automatic six-month extension is available by filing Form 8868 before the original deadline, which is a genuinely useful safety valve if your bookkeeping isn't ready. The 990-N e-postcard is the exception: it has no extension mechanism at all, though the IRS notes there's no penalty for filing it late either. The real penalty for 990-N is indirect: it still counts toward the three consecutive missed years that trigger auto-revocation, extension or not. Don't confuse "no penalty for late 990-N" with "no consequence." A late 990-N filed in year three still stops the revocation clock. A 990-N never filed at all in year three does not.

How do you know which 990 form your organization should file?

Check your organization's average gross receipts over the last three years, more than this year's number, since the IRS uses a rolling test for 990-N eligibility ("normally" $50,000 or less, which has specific averaging rules for new and older organizations).^[4] Then match against the thresholds: - Gross receipts normally $50,000 or less: file Form 990-N.

• Gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000: file Form 990-EZ (or you can choose the full 990 if you prefer more disclosure).
• Gross receipts $200,000 or more, or total assets $500,000 or more: file the full Form 990.
• Private foundations file Form 990-PF regardless of size.^[3] If you're right at a threshold, or you had one unusually large fundraising year, don't guess. Confirm with the IRS or a qualified preparer which form applies for that specific tax year, since crossing a threshold even once changes what's required for that year. For a plain walkthrough of the smallest and most common version, see 990-N and Form 990-N. For the fuller picture across all versions, see Form 990, ^[990](/articles/treasurer-basics/990), 990 tax form, and IRS Form 990.

What records does a treasurer need before filing?

Before you sit down to file anything, you need: the organization's EIN, the prior year's filed return (if any), a full year of bank statements, a summary of income by source, a summary of expenses by category, and, if you're above the 990-N threshold, a balance sheet showing assets and liabilities at year start and year end. Good monthly habits make this a non-event. Bad habits (shoebox of receipts, three different Venmo accounts nobody reconciled, a cash box that occasionally goes home with a volunteer) turn filing season into weeks of forensic accounting. If you're stepping into a treasurer role cold, the fastest fix isn't a finance degree, it's a clean system: one bank account, a monthly reconciliation habit, and a simple income/expense log from day one. That's the whole idea behind the $99 State-Personalized Treasurer Kit from BoosterLedger: bylaws-ready templates, a reconciliation checklist, and state-specific guidance so a new treasurer isn't rebuilding the filing system from scratch every time the role changes hands. It's not tax advice and it doesn't guarantee any filing outcome; it's a starting structure so the actual filing (which you or an accountant still handles) is based on clean numbers instead of a shoebox.

Frequently asked questions

What does a treasurer do?

A treasurer tracks all money in and out of an organization, reconciles bank statements, presents financial reports, keeps a budget, and files the annual tax return (Form 990-series for nonprofits). In a club setting it's usually an unpaid volunteer role with real fiduciary responsibility to members and, for 501(c)(3)s, to the public.

What is a treasurer?

A treasurer is the officer of an organization, elected or appointed under its bylaws, responsible for managing its finances: cash handling, bookkeeping, financial reporting, and tax compliance. For nonprofits, that includes filing the correct IRS Form 990-series return each year based on gross receipts.

What do treasurers do that other board members don't?

Treasurers are the only board member with direct, ongoing access to and responsibility for the money: bank accounts, cash boxes, and the tax filing. Other officers vote on spending; the treasurer executes it, reconciles it against the bank, and reports the real numbers back to the board.

What is Form 990?

Form 990 is the IRS's annual information return for tax-exempt organizations. The full-length version is required for organizations with gross receipts of $200,000 or more or assets of $500,000 or more; smaller groups file 990-EZ or the 990-N e-postcard instead, per IRS guidance.

What does a treasurer do in a club?

A club treasurer keeps the checkbook, tracks fundraiser and dues income, requires proper approval for spending, reconciles the bank account monthly, presents a financial report at meetings, and files the club's annual 990-series tax form with the IRS by the deadline.

What does a club treasurer do differently from a nonprofit's paid finance staff?

A club treasurer is nearly always an unpaid volunteer with no dedicated staff, managing a small checking account and one annual filing, versus paid nonprofit finance staff managing larger budgets with audit committees and accounting software. The core duties (tracking, reporting, filing) are the same; the scale and support are not.

What is a 990 tax form?

The 990 tax form is the IRS's annual information return for tax-exempt organizations, required under Internal Revenue Code section 6033. It reports revenue, expenses, and organizational details so the IRS and public can confirm the group is still operating consistent with its tax-exempt purpose.

What is the 990, in plain terms?

The 990 is the annual paperwork nonprofits file to stay in good standing with the IRS. It's not usually a tax bill; it's a disclosure form. Depending on size, it's the full Form 990, the shorter 990-EZ, or the eight-question 990-N e-postcard for organizations with $50,000 or less in gross receipts.

What does a treasurer of a club do if the group is small and informal?

Even an informal club with no paid staff and a small bank account should still track income and expenses, keep receipts, and file the 990-N e-postcard if it has an EIN and is organized as a nonprofit. Skipping filings for three straight years triggers automatic loss of tax-exempt status under federal law.

What happens if a booster club never files a 990?

After three consecutive years of not filing any required 990-series return, the IRS automatically revokes the organization's tax-exempt status under 26 U.S.C. § 6033(j), added by the Pension Protection Act of 2006. Reinstatement requires filing Form 1023 or 1023-EZ again plus back returns, generally with a fee.

How much does it cost to file a Form 990?

Filing the 990-N e-postcard is free. There's no IRS fee to file 990-EZ or the full 990 either, though many groups pay a preparer or accountant. If your status was revoked and you need to reapply for exemption, the IRS charges $600 for Form 1023 or $275 for Form 1023-EZ, per current IRS fee schedules.

Can a treasurer file the 990 themselves, or do they need an accountant?

Many small booster clubs and PTOs file the 990-N themselves since it's an eight-question online form with no fee. Once a group reaches 990-EZ or full 990 territory (over $50,000 in gross receipts), hiring an accountant familiar with nonprofit filings is often worth the cost.

Does a treasurer need to file anything with the state, more than the IRS?

Many states require separate annual charitable registration or renewal beyond the federal 990 filing, especially if the organization solicits donations or runs raffles. Requirements and fees vary widely by state, so confirm current rules directly with your state charity office or attorney general's charities division.

Sources

1. Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute, 26 U.S.C. § 6033(j): Automatic revocation of tax-exempt status after three consecutive years of failing to file a required return
2. IRS, Instructions for Form 990: Purpose of the Form 990 series under section 6033
3. IRS, Form 990 Resources and Tools: Gross receipts and asset thresholds separating 990-EZ from full Form 990
4. IRS, Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations (Form 990-N): 990-N eligibility threshold of normally $50,000 or less in gross receipts and filing method
5. IRS, Automatic Revocation of Exemption: Direct IRS statement that organizations failing to file for three consecutive years automatically lose tax-exempt status
6. IRS, Revenue Procedure 2014-11: Procedures for retroactive reinstatement of tax-exempt status after automatic revocation
7. IRS, About Form 8868: Automatic six-month extension available for 990-series filings via Form 8868