ARDC's 2020 tax returns & audited financials - 44net

4 Jan 2022


      Hi 44net!  Today it's 2022, but due to Covid delays and other issues, it
took us until a few months ago to finish our 2020 tax returns.  (Future
messages will talk about our 2021 and 2022 finances.)
Back in August, I wrote to 44net:
...
The actual situation between ARDC and the IRS rules is far more
complicated and interesting than what Pete describes.  The loss of our
501c3 status is not at risk.  We are still working out the details with
our nonprofit tax lawyers.  We will publish our first 990-PF (private
foundation) tax return for 2020 on our website and to the 44net when we
file it, and then we can talk with more certainty.
ARDC's 2020 tax return and audit are now published!  I chair the Audit
Committee, which worked with our accountants and auditors to finalize
these documents.  The Audit Committee is, by California law, composed of
people who are not paid by the org and have no financial stake in it.
Most of the work of the audit and tax returns was actually done by Rosy
and Bdale, our executive director and treasurer, and our accounting
firm, AAFCPA.com.  All of our public financial information is visible at
this URL, with the 2020 info at the bottom of the page:
https://www.ampr.org/about/legal/
There were no irregularities in our audit.  In 2020, ARDC had a great
investment year, funded a lot of worthwhile projects, improved our
internal operations, and learned a few surprises about nonprofit law and
accounting.
2020 was a great year for us, as it was for many steady investors.  Our
$109 million in investments gained $22 million, about a 20% gain, with
our assets reaching $128 million.  (We simply invest in the broad stock
and bond markets, using exchange-traded mutual funds, while keeping
multiple years' worth of cash available in case of downturns.)
In 2020, we ramped up our grant-making programs, as well as reducing the
volunteer board's workload by hiring Rosy, our first Executive Director
since Brian Kantor died.  We spent only about $450,000 in expenses like
salaries, contractors, and taxes.  We gave out about $3.2 million in
grants.  Those grants are listed on our "Awarded Grants" pages:
https://www.ampr.org/grants/
  https://www.ampr.org/2020-grants/
They are also listed on pages 11, 15 and 16 of the 990-PF tax return.
These include more than $1 million in scholarships, half a million
dollars toward improved satellite transceiver modulation, and a variety
of both engineering projects and local infrastructure improvements.
2020 was the first year in which ARDC operated as a private foundation.
That is an IRS category for charitable nonprofits that make most of
their income in some way other than with donations from the general
public.  The IRS is more suspicious of private foundations than they are
of public charities, since there are more opportunities for mischief
when a broad cross-section of the public isn't watching.  Most of what
they look out for is self-serving behavior, like paying ourselves
outrageous salaries, or funding things using non-taxable money that
would pump up a related for-profit business.
Private foundations can't give money to individuals without filing a
detailed plan with the IRS.  And to give money to organizations that
aren't US 501c3 nonprofits, there are more controls and hoops to jump
through.  For example, when we funded DARC.DE, the German amateur radio
club, to upgrade various parts of the European ham infrastructure, we
and they had to go through a months-long paperwork exercise to prove
that DARC is the German "equivalent" of a US 501c3 public charity.  We
have had to do a lot of consulting with lawyers and accountants to do
everything properly.  We want to be able to fund ham activities,
education, and digital communications R&D throughout the world, not just
in the United States.  And to also be able to help small ham clubs that
aren't organized as charitable 501c3 nonprofits.
Private foundations also pay a small "excise tax" on their investment
income -- about 1.39%.  Yes, we're a charitable nonprofit, but Congress
has figured out how to tax us anyway.  For 2020, that cost us $33,730.
And the biggest chunk of our $450,000 in expenses was when we accrued a
deferred expense of about $277,000 for the "unrealized" investment gains
that happened when the stock market went up so much.  We won't have to
pay that tax until we actually sell the investments that went up, but
the deferred expense reminds us of what we will owe.
In 2020, we failed at one IRS requirement.  Luckily, the rules give us
an extra year to make up for it, before we'd have to pay penalties.
That is the requirement that every private foundation has to spend or
give away 5% of the "fair market value" of its investable assets every
year.  This has to be calculated on a cash basis (not by accrual), so if
a grant check was not cashed until 2021, it didn't count.  This is often
mis-described as a requirement that we give away 5% of our "income" or
"investment returns", but actually a foundation owes it whether or not
it has any income or investment returns.  Even if a private foundation
doesn't invest some of its assets, if they aren't directly using those
assets for charitable purposes, they have to give 5% of them away
annually.  The whole idea is that to justify their income tax exemption,
nonprofit private foundations have to actually do good in the world,
spreading their wealth around, rather than just sitting pretty and
hoarding their assets.  This is a laudable goal, but now see how it
applied to us.
Since our average investment assets throughout the year were almost $117
million, our "distributable amount" was 5% of that, or about $5.8
million.  We only spent or gave out about $3.2 million, so that's how we
failed.  That calculation is on pages 8 and 9 of our tax return.  We
would have done better, but we didn't realize that we would be treated
as a private foundation in 2020; we thought we had another year as a
public charity.  Having learned that in 2021, we believe that for 2021
we have met and exceeded that 5% requirement, and we expect to reduce or
eliminate our carried-over shortfall of spending from 2020.
Our ability to follow the 5% rule is only easy because we are not
treating our remaining IP addresses as an investment asset.  Instead, we
are using them directly in our charitable works (including both
providing small numbers of addresses to hams, and accomplishing
scientific research using the other addresses via the Network
Telescope).  If we did have to treat those addresses as an investment
asset, we would be required to spend 5% of their value every year.
Because the addresses we still have are 3x as many as what we sold off
in 2019, and the value of IP addresses is rising, the IRS would require
us to annually spend about 4x as much as we do today!  That would
deplete all of our liquid assets within a small number of years, and
then require us to sell off a new 5% of our addresses every year, just
to create the cash to grant out 5% of their worth every year.
This is what I meant when I said back in August that our situation is
"complicated and interesting".  It's a bit like the "use it or lose it"
nature of ham frequency band allocations.  If we really didn't use the
IP addresses for charitable purposes, then we would be forced to
gradually lose them.
In summary, in 2020, ARDC had a great investment year, funded a lot of
worthwhile projects, improved our internal operations, and learned a few
surprises about nonprofit law and accounting.  With what we learned in
2020, we expect to finish our 2021 audit and taxes much sooner -- in the
first half of 2022.
Any questions?
John Gilmore, chair, ARDC Audit Committee