Current Events

Earlier this year the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L 111-148) created a small business health care credit. Small businesses, including non-profit organizations and churches, may receive a credit for part of their employees’ health insurance premiums (up to 25% of premiums paid by nonprofit employers, 35% for other businesses). A “small employer” has fewer than 25 full-time equivalent employees for the tax year and pays them an average annual wages of less than $50,000 each. This credit is in effect for 2010 – 2013, and will increase in 2014. If you have more than 25 employees, and some of them are part-time, you may still qualify for the credit. Please follow the link for additional guidance from the IRS on the application and calculation of the credit.

In its report released this month (March 2010), the Council gave recommendations to the President on areas of need targeted by the White House and also on reform of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Noting the disagreement among Council members on the issues of federally-funded programs provided by churches and religious organizations, and the oversight of those funds by government agencies, the following recommendations (among many others) were given:

For a comparison of the current health care reform proposals from the three Congressional committees, go to www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm. The current proposals generally focus on forced coverage for employees, with penalties for employers who do not comply. For example, House Democrats propose a penalty of 8% of payroll for employers who fail to fund 65% of employee insurance premiums. Small employers would be exempt – depending on the proposal, a ‘small employer’ could mean fewer than 25 employees, or total payroll less than $250,000. The plans would also require all individuals to have insurance, or face penalties.

According to a field directive issued in July 2008, the IRS considers nonprofit organizations responsible for information contained on linked sites in the same manner the nonprofit organization is responsible for its own printed or published materials. This field directive (see at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/internetfielddirective072808.pdf) relates directly to political campaign activities. This is based largely on Rev. Rul. 2007-41 (see at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rr-07-41.pdf) which states that a Web page is the same as printed material, and the organization has control over which links are placed on the Web page. Therefore, the organization is responsible for the content of the linked material.

Many of the popular social networking sites today such as Twitter and Facebook are being used by churches, ministries, and those that work with them more than ever to reach followers. This is one of the many new ways the younger generation communicates and churches and ministries have taken notice. Blogs have become popular over the last few years as well.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/twitter/52740...

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2009/may/02/faithbook-lawrence-religious-gr...