Nonprofit & Tax-Exempt Organizations
Gray Plant Mooty's Nonprofit and Tax-exempt Organizations team combines genuine appreciation for our clients' work with expertise in the highly specialized, complex, and dynamic legal environment in which they operate.
Our attorneys take great pride in helping nonprofits achieve their goals, providing legal counsel to a broad array of organizations including:
- Colleges, universities, and schools
- Health care organizations
- Human services programs
- Community foundations
- Political organizations
- Private foundations for individuals and corporations
- Start-up nonprofit organizations
- Social enterprise nonprofits
Astute Tax Strategies
For many nonprofits, navigating the subtleties of state and federal tax law is the key to successful operations. Our Nonprofit and Tax-exempt Organizations team helps you stay on course and out of trouble, dealing creatively and effectively with your specific tax-related issues.
For example, our lawyers have:
- Handled tax planning for complex health care systems, obtaining IRS rulings that are among the first of their kind
- Secured tax-exempt status for numerous charitable organizations with unique activities and purposes
- Restructured the governance of multi-entity, tax-exempt organizations
- Structured joint ventures and affiliations with nonprofit and for-profit partners
- Provided tax-planning services for nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations
- Structured earned-income ventures to maximize tax advantages
- Obtained property tax exemption and successfully protested denials of exempt status
- Used single-member limited liability companies to hold related or unrelated activities
- Represented tax exempt organizations in purchases and sales of businesses and service lines with other nonprofit and for-profit entities
- Represented tax exempt organizations in IRS audits, appeals, state attorney general inquiries, and investigations
- Advised on federal and state campaign finance compliance for issue advocacy nonprofits
- Established for-profit subsidiaries for unrelated and earned income business venturers
- Represented tax-exempt organizations in purchase and sales of business and service lines with other nonprofit entities
Our services go beyond the traditional. For example, if you should face government funding reductions, we seek innovative ways for you to increase revenues and become self-sustaining without jeopardizing your tax-exempt status. And because we know you need to understand how the changing legal landscape affects your operations, we keep you informed of important developments through personal meetings, educational seminars, newsletters, and client alerts.
Complete Legal Support
Like all businesses, nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations have a full range of legal needs. Our team supports you with the comprehensive services you need to fulfill your mission, including:
- Affiliations, joint ventures, and mergers & acquisitions
- Charitable contribution solicitation
- Structuring of charitable gifts
- Corporate sponsorships and cause-related marketing
- Compliance with federal and state reporting requirements
- Director and officer liability and conflicts of interests
- Administration of endowments and restricted funds
- IRS audits and appeals
- Lobbying and political activity
- Tax-exempt bond financing
- Unrelated business taxable income and sales tax
Our attorneys are highly skilled and familiar with the unique needs of nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations in the following legal areas:
- Employment
- Employee benefits
- Real estate
- Charitable giving
- Intellectual property
- Bond financing