Solicitation: Fill & Download for Free

You are required to withhold and submit to the IRS 28% of the payment to the contractor. If you've already issued them payment without receiving the TIN number you should begin the Solicitation requirements under Questions 19 in IRS PUB 1281 as well as withhold and submit to the IRS 28% of all future payments.Resources:http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdfhttp://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1281.pdf

Everything you ever want to know about a charitable organization or nonprofit like Wounded Warrior Project is contained in their IRS Form 990 filing, required annually to preserve their 501(c)# tax-exempt status. The best aggregators for these filings are https://www.guidestar.org (which has wound down a bit since 2019), and Google searches: Searching “IRS Form 990 Wounded Warrior Project 2018” returns several investigations from ProPublica that suggest Wounded Warrior Project intentionally provided false information in their 990s to hide widespread, long-running “financial and accounting irregularities”.You probably don’t want to pay for the full GuideStar service, but there’s two pieces of information you get for free at https://www.guidestar.org/profile/20-2370934 on Wounded Warrior Project:The info in the RED box is the CEO’s name and affiliation. The box in yellow is the nonprofit EIN (Employer Identification Number), which is basically a charity’s Social Security number. You can do deeper searches with the EIN (civil lawsuit filings, IRS/regulatory investigations, state regulatory actions) and learn a lot about the CEO and the 10 highest-paid employees, highest-paid vendors (which are often tied to the CEO or their family), and how their charitable giving ranks against other similar-sized, similar mission 501(c)# org.Here’s the link to the actual IRS Form 990 for Wounded Warrior Project’s most recent filing, from a document collection from ProPublica:Wounded Warrior Project Inc, Form 990 - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublicaThe form has a bunch of red flags:Part V, Line 4a disclosure of accounts held in a foreign country (Described in 4b as ‘GM’)Part VI, Line 2 disclosure of family members in board, executive and key roles735 employees is huge for a nonprofitOther opaque elements that I won’t bore you with.The information you want is always top-lined in Part VII of the form (see screenshot below, CEO since 2016 Michael S. Linnington in red box) on page 7: Compensation of Officers, Directors, Trustees, Key Employees, Highest Compensated Employees, and Independent ContractorsThe first column is number of hours worked in average week at WWP (50 hours/week).The ‘X’ indicates he is an officer of the org.The $120,441 is the annual reportable compensation he gets. This is not a real number: the key word is “reportable”.The $0 is reportable comp from ‘related organizations’ filing W-2 or 1099-MISC to the CEO.The $13,805 is “estimated” additional compensation from the org and related orgs. This is also misleading (or used to mislead) quite often.What’s interesting is the Chief Financial Officer (line 13, Eric S. Miller) earns $220k… while at the same time, the ex-CFO (Line 16, Ronald W. Burgess) earned $302k for being ex-CFO. It’s also a red flag that all the officers show 50 hours/week of work: how does the ex-CFO earning $302,000 work 50 hours as an officer when the actual CFO earning $220,000 is also spending 50 hours a week?The same setup is in place for the ex-COO, ex-CEO, former Chief Strategy Officer, former Chief Program Officer, former National Services Director… all earning 6 figures, working 50 hour weeks to do… what?It’s also extremely heavy with VPs and front-loaded officer-level positions earning $200k-$300k a year as…VP of Economic Empowerment?VP of Engagement and Physical Health?Which is different from VP of Independence and Mental Health?Check out Section B. Independent Contractors (page 8). They paid three outside ‘direct response’ firms soliciting donation requests… paying fees to the three of more than $31 million in 2017.Key takeaway: Very interesting is that they have $347 million in investments and holdings. They collected $226 million in donations in 2017, but they spent $231 million on operating expenses.BOTTOM LINE: Read the ProPublica investigation, but please check out the Military Money Matters investigation:Wounded Warrior Project Tax Returns Analyzed — an accountant takes apart their finances and makes a strong argument that the A+ ratings given to it are completely unearned.

In the United States, in most cases, no. But there are exceptions.In most cases, GoFundMe receipts are “personal gifts” given with no expectation of any return or other consideration, which makes them nontaxable income to the recipient, at least in the United States.However, if the person soliciting the gifts makes any sort of promise to do any thing for or on behalf of the the donors, then the money received may be, instead, compensation, and will thus be taxable, in part or in full. This can happen, for example, if you promise to give prizes in return for contributions of certain amounts.In addition, if the recipient of the funds is a business venture (whether or not formally organized as such) that is undertaken with the intention of making a profit, the receipts will generally be taxable as business income unless the business conveys a debenture, stock, or other form of equity to the payor (in which case that payor is formally an investor, not a donor).So, if you use GoFundMe to defray your cancer bills, the money you get is probably not taxable. If you use GoFundMe-raised funds to launch a business venture, the money you get is almost certainly taxable unless you make the donors shareholders in that business or enter into a binding agreement to pay them back (with reasonable interest) at a later date.If your campaign receives more than 200 donations totalling more than $20,000, you will get an IRS Form 1099-K from GoFundMe, which you will have to deal with in some manner when you file your taxes. You will want to keep scrupulous records of the details of the campaign in case the IRS has questions.Consult a tax attorney for advice specific to your situation.