Frankly, we don't do as good a job on this as we could. Like you, we make sure we take advantage on large purchases - we saved $250 in state tax on our giftwrap purchase.

The state does not make it easy. The paperwork is not hard, but it is a pain in the neck because it requires a signature of a board member. The person making a purchase is not always able to get the signature when needed. Sometimes it is not worth saving $1 on a $20 purchase.

At our PTO meetings we try to remind committee chairs and people making purchases that the forms are available. (Now that I think of it, we should bring a few to the meetings to sign and hand out right there - why didn't I think of that before?). To make it easier, our web master has scanned the forms in and put them on a private location. Only a trusted few have access to the URL.

Awesome, Phil. I've had the "privilege" of doing this for 2 PTOs myself. In a sick sort of way, wish I could do more...once you get the knowledge, it's nice to be able to share it.

Question...do you really find that you take advantage of the sales tax exemption? We do on large purchases, typically those that are done by po or sales order. But the day to day walk up buying on the PTO's behalf, no. I remember reviewing our check requests forms for a year and found we paid several hundreds of dollars in sales tax, but it's really hard to get the paperwork into the hands of all our volunteers who might be purchasing things for their committees in order to substantially reduce that amount. We manage a strict budget, but have lots of volunteers. Any advice on how to do this better?

I have been meaning to do this for a while. Another post in the Robert's Rules board finally prompted me to do this.

Our PTO went through the process of becoming 501c3 with the IRS, and a Public Charity with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This past summer we completed our first reporting year and finished filing all our paperwork with the IRS and the state in November.

We were the first PTO in town to complete the process. The Mayor has reps from the PTOs and the school system meet once a quarter and I offered to make a presentation about our experience to that group.

Since then, a couple of the other PTOs have asked me to make the presentation to their groups, a third PTO has asked for help in filling out the IRS forms, and another one has successfully completed the process.

At the following link is the presentation that goes through - in some detail - the process to apply for recognition of non profit status (501c3) and what has to be done in MA to be a public charity. It also describes our timeline (and why it took longer than it could have) and some of the benefits we see in going down the path. (For example, we saved more in state sales tax than it cost us to pay a CPA to help us file the returns).

Even if you are not a MA PTO, I hope the information on the Federal filing is useful.

The URL is www.macarthurschool.com/pto.htm

Once on the page, Click on the "Guide to getting Non-Profit/Tax-Exempt for a PTO" link. It is located on the right-hand side of the page, under the Babel Fish and above the PTO Calendar.

Our Charter (Articles of Organization to the IRS) is also located on that page, just above the Non-Profit presentation.