Churches, charities and other tax-exempt organizations that paid the federal excise tax on long-distance or bundled telephone service qualify for this year’s one-time telephone excise tax refund, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
With the annual May 15 filing deadline approaching for many nonprofits, the IRS is again urging any of the organizations that paid the 3 percent tax to be sure to request the refund, which is also available to churches and small tax-exempt organizations that don’t normally file annual returns with the IRS.
Organizations can request the refund by filing Form 990-T, “Exempt Organization Business Income Tax Return,” and attaching Form 8913, “Credit for Federal Telephone Excise Tax Paid.” Organizations that obtain a credit or refund from their service providers are not eligible to file a refund request with the IRS.
Despite IRS efforts to publicize the one-time refund, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration released a recent report on interim filing results that found that far fewer people than expected were claiming the refund. And many of the people who were claiming the refund were doing so for amounts that were clearly fraudulent.
More information for tax-exempt groups looking to claim the refund is available at
