Thank-You-IRS
Thank You! / Carol VanHook

Sometime Wednesday night, the IRS returned the Exempt Organizations “missing link” to the main IRS landing page after Wednesday’s publication of “The Case of the Disappearing Exempt Organizations Link on IRS.gov.” This link will make it easier for public and nonprofit organizations throughout the U.S. to find their way to the Exempt Organizations’ home page and to the resources that IRS personnel create to benefit all of us.

Thank you, Commissioner Koskinen, for listening and responding. Thanks also to the IRS TE/GE, EO, and IT personnel who reestablished this direct and easy link, especially because it was not on your day’s work plan. Your quiet and highly symbolic response is representative of the professionalism and dedication of TE/GE and Exempt Organizations’ personnel to the nonprofit sector.

The IRS staff, like the members of our government and our communities throughout this country, recognizes that each of us is affected by work the nonprofit community accomplishes every day. Nonprofits build and rebuild social capital and seek more often than not to bring us together. These organizations create the links that tie us together—some of which has sadly been forgotten in recent years by our elected leadership.

The past few years have seen the IRS leadership and management challenged, needlessly limited in its ability to serve the nonprofit sector and the public. Taxes and the IRS are not going away. They may change, but what is needed now is respectful listening and thoughtful dialog arising from respectful and courteous acknowledgment, especially when differences arise.

As members of the nonprofit sector, we have a responsibility for building and maintaining these links as well. It is long past time for members of the sector to say to our political representatives, “Knock it off!” Let’s get on with the business of enabling the IRS to help our nonprofit organizations and, through them, our communities!

Again, thanks to the IRS for listening and responding.—Marty Martin