Tax-Exempt Organizations

Brooks Pierce provides full tax and corporate services with a significant emphasis on matters of concern to tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations.

We provide a broad range of tax and corporate services for tax-exempt organizations, including formation under state law, obtaining a determination of tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service, assistance in qualification as a public charity or private foundation and other ancillary matters, including establishment of a board of directors and officers. We also counsel clients retaining tax-exempt status for nonprofit organizations and dealing with various legal restrictions on nonprofits, including the intermediate sanctions, private inurements, private benefit, and unrelated business income tax rules. Representation of nonprofit organizations before the Internal Revenue Service, state taxing authorities, and other governmental entities is also provided. Our firm also counsels the use and operation of private foundations in conjunction with larger estate planning objectives, and we serve as general counsel to several trade associations.

We are active in analyzing a nonprofit organization's participation in various ventures with for-profit entities, including partnerships, joint ventures, conversions to for-profits, management contracts, and other arrangements. Our firm has taken the lead in restructuring tax-exempt entities, including the creation of parent organizations and for-profit management companies, as well as for-profit and nonprofit subsidiaries.