I belong to an organization that thought that they were a non for profit - holding the status under an umbrella group- I found out after planning a fund raiser for our scholarship that we do not have a non for profit status and were lead to believe under several former officers that the "unbrella organization" was the organizer of the non for profit and allthe organizations under it were classified as such. I want o to apply for a non for profit staus- but all that I have read indicates that the status must be applied for within a short time after formation of the group. This group is over 50 years old and exists to do the charity work. I was told today by a source that if we applied now we would be fined for existing all those years without the legal staus.

Is this true? Seems to me the organization that claimed to represent the group to which we paid dues should be held accountable and we should be able to apply without penalty. Any suggestions?

You can exist without being a non profit, you are a profit group that is doing good work basically.
Some groups such as churches have a automatic exemption in some cases and do not have to file and request a letter. But other groups have to.

So it is not a matter of what happens, it is a matter that it needs to correct its previous error

Any suggestions ??Hello E:

Visit a CPA.

excon