IL-NET TA

Leases – A big change in the accounting rules

by John Heveron

It has been well publicized that accounting for leases is changing dramatically, but most of us are just getting our first hands-on experience with this change. The new rules are being implemented for calendar year 2022 and fiscal years ending in 2023.

This may raise a question about whether federal cost reimbursement will change.

An important first task is to determine whether you have operating leases or financing leases. In prior years we used the terms operating lease and capital lease. The new financing leases have similar characteristics to capital leases and, sometimes, the terms are used interchangeably.

Any lease that it is not a financing lease is an operating lease. A financing lease will have at least one of these characteristics:

* ownership transfers to the lessee at the end of the lease,
* the leased property can be purchased at the end of the lease and purchase is reasonably certain,
* the length of the lease is for a major part of the useful life of the property,
* the present value of the lease payments equals or exceeds substantially all of the value of the property, or
* the asset is specialized and there is no practical alternative value for the leased property

If none of these characteristics exist, you have an operating lease and you will continue to record rent expense, so there shouldn’t be any adverse impact on your federal reimbursements.

None of these characteristics would typically exist for a facility lease (although that is possible).

If you do have a financing lease, you will be recording interest expense and also amortizing the asset (your right to the leased property). The amortization is uniform over the term of the lease, but the interest works like a loan, with more interest upfront, so expenses would be somewhat more initially than an operating lease, but not more than a prior capital lease under the old rules. Your federal reimbursements should not differ from a capital lease to a financing lease, but if an old operating lease is now characterized as a financing lease, your expenses and your reimbursements could increase slightly. Uniform Guidance and HHS Uniform Administrative Requirements both use generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) as a starting point, so unless some modification is enacted, reimbursement for the accelerated expenditures should be permitted.

The big difference occurs on your balance sheet. All leases with a term of more than one year are capitalized (treated as assets) on your balance sheet. This is done by calculating the present value of the future lease payments including options that are likely to be exercised. Once that calculation is done you will record an asset that you might call “leased property”, or some other descriptive account, and a liability that you might call “lease liability”.

This raises several questions, including:

* what about donated space? These rules don’t apply to donated space,
* what about a below market lease rate? This could be a partial lease and a partial contribution, or just a good deal,
* do these transactions get recorded retroactively or prospectively? An accounting option, which is probably the easiest way to implement the new reporting rules would be to record the asset and liability at the beginning of the current year in your financial statements or at the beginning of the lease if that is later,
* what discount rate should be used to calculate the fair value? The rules say that if there is a rate implicit in the lease, we should use that, but that is rare so we can use a “risk-free rate of return” at the time the lease is recorded. For leases that have been in place but are recorded initially in your calendar year 2022 financial statements, you could use the federal bond rates. Federal bond rates at the beginning of 2022 were 1.34 % For 2 year bonds, 1.62% for 5 year bonds, and 1.83 For 10 year bonds,
* should leases be broken out between short-term and long-term? Yes they should, and assets and liabilities related to operating leases and financing leases should be reported separately, and
* Is there any other impact other than the extra work? Adding these assets and liabilities to your balance sheet could impact your compliance with loan covenants. Most bankers are well aware of this change, so if you believe your compliance with covenants will be affected, you should have a conversation with your banker.

Do you have a Unique Entity Identifier? by John Heveron

In the past the federal government used DUNs numbers to identify entities that it provides funding to and does other business with. Now they are assigning and using Unique Entity Identifiers (UEIs).

If you currently receive, and have been receiving federal funding, you most likely already have a UEI. You can find that by logging into SAM.gov. You should be familiar with that website because of contains other important resources.

If you will have a single audit for 2022, you will need your UEI to submit that audit report to the Federal audit clearinghouse.

SAM.gov will allow you to apply for a UEI, or update your information.

You may need documents to validate your request for a UEI, including a receipted copy of your articles of incorporation, your IRS exemption letter, or other documentation such as a bank statement or utility bill.

Independent Contractor V. Employee Guidance yet Again

by John Heveron

The US Department of Labor has proposed changing how workers get classified as employees or independent contractors again.

Changes under the Trump administration made it easier for businesses and nonprofits to classify workers as independent contractors by focusing on just 2 key factors. The DOL is proposing that several factors be analyzed to determine whether the worker is economically dependent upon the employer for work rather than being in business for themselves.

Individual factors would not be given special weight, they would be considered as a whole. Factors would include:

* the nature and degree of the workers control over their work,

* the relative investment of the worker and of the employer,

* the workers opportunity for profit or loss,

* the permanence of the working relationship between the worker and the employer,

* the degree of skill necessary to perform the work, and

* the extent to which a worker’s duties are an integral part of the employer’s business.

Passing along — fellowship for self-advocacy for individuals

Blue banner with white text: ACL Announcement

Recent tax legislation by John Heveron

In addition to the student loan forgiveness enacted by President Biden, and estimated to be worth between $390- $500 billion by The Tax Foundation, Congress recently passed, and the president signed, the Inflation Reduction Act. Student loan forgiveness for nonprofit employees expires on October 31, 2022. This is not the same as the recently enacted student loan forgiveness program. Some of the limitations in that new forgive this program to not apply to nonprofit employees.

Employees can go to https://studentaid.gov/PSLF to check their eligibility for forgiveness.

The National Council of Nonprofits put together a concise outline of how this legislation impacts nonprofit organizations. Highlights are below.

The new law provides enhanced and extended tax breaks for energy efficient construction in the form of tax credits. Nonprofit organizations can transfer these credits to contractors and reduce the contract cost for these energy efficient systems.

Healthcare premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act are extended for three years. Credits are increased for participants who are between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level.

Visit the National Council of Nonprofits website for a summary of the inflation reduction act.

Penalty Relief for Late Filed Tax Returns

IRS recently issued Notice 2022-36 which provides penalty relief for 2019 and 2020 tax returns that were filed late. This penalty relief means that unpaid penalties will be forgiven and penalties that have been paid will be automatically refunded-no application is required. Delinquent returns must be filed on or before September 30, 2022 to qualify for this penalty forgiveness. Penalty relief will be for the following returns:

Form 1040 personal income tax returns,
Form 1041 trust and estate income tax returns,
Form 1120 corporation income tax returns,
Informational return such as form 1099,
Form 990-PF-private foundation annual filing, and
Form 990-T-unrelated business income tax return

Forms 990 and 990-EZ are not listed in this notice, but they are still eligible for the normal abatement request process.

More details can be found in Internal Revenue Service Notice 2022-36.

Disclosure of disability for board and staff…

Question: A board member has asked about knowing who/how many on the board have a disability. The want to poll the board members and find out. I have always been told that it is “optional” to disclose this information. I have often wondered how we know we are 51% compliant (many people in he world have “hidden” disabilities) but again, I was told from the beginning that one applying for the board or to be an employee did not have to disclose. We let all know we are to be 51% disabled in our applications but are not supposed to come out and “ask”. Can you clarify for me please?

Reply: This is not a simple policy matter but a deeply philosophical matter as well.

Literally the center must be able to show that 51% of board members have a significant disability. Note the term “significant”. It can’t be “you wear glasses so you count”. But while having that question on the application and counting up the yeses technically meets the requirement it misses the point.Fifty-one percent of staff must state that they have a disability.

And I can’t tell you how it saddens me when centers have a non-disclosure piece in their policies. Note this is an individual decision. Nothing in federal law mentions that the disability doesn’t have to be disclosed or must be disclosed to the public, either way.

The point is that people who are loud and proud to be part of the disability community are the ones who started and run centers. When you have a lot of invisible disability (sometimes because someone doesn’t want to say) among staff and board, the impact of consumer control can be and too often has been lost.

I know that some folks are not ready to publicly disclose, for example, a mental health disability, and may ask you not to publish their disability because of the impact on their work or business life. They have that right-but the fact that they have that fear means we have much work to do in order to have full inclusion in our world.

Does that answer your board question?

The staff question is more complicated but the law allows you to ask if they will disclose when hired so you can take affirmative action. After hire I truly hope they will speak up and represent their disability to the community.

Leases Get Capitalized for 2022

By John Heveron

Leases must be capitalized in your financial statements for calendar year 2022 and fiscal years ending after December 31, 2022. This will apply to in place leases, although month-to-month leases and leases with a term of less than one year will not be required to be capitalized.

When this is done, your balance sheet will show a new, potentially very large, asset representing the right to use the leased property. It will also show a new liability, which is the obligation to pay under the lease agreement.

This won’t increase or decrease your equity or your surplus/deficit. However it may affect your current ratio. You should check whether this will have an impact on any loan covenants.

Large CPA firms have quite a bit of helpful guidance regarding lease capitalization procedures. Check out https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capitalleasemethod.asp

Be respectful of disability – wear your mask and don’t look down on those who do.

I recently attended a national conference of professionals in the field of Independent Living. I showed up in my mask and wore it most of the time, but I still felt the unspoken peer pressure of, hey, most are NOT wearing masks, and I don’t want to be the dork. So I was ambivalent, sometimes putting it on, most of the time not after that. Maybe it didn’t really matter.

I came home and read this powerful post from Disability Visibility and I am reposting it here. It made me change my mind. I WILL be masking at future national conferences, out of respect for my peers whose immune systems need my support.

Why I Won’t Be Organizing Any In-Person Fundraising Events For the Foreseeable Future

Ingrid Tischer

Informational graphic from the CDC. The text message is “Avoid crowds and poorly ventilated spaces.” The stylized image is of a woman wearing a mask and walking two dogs outside on leashes. She is alone with the dogs.

Reasons, I’ve got a few. But this still-current guidance from the CDC for high-risk people is the one that matters for any organization claiming inclusion as a core value.

Because May is Mental Health Awareness Month and what better time could there be for me, a high-risk Development Director at a nonprofit, to deal with my depression flare’s connection to fundraising-event season, both of which are now in full swing, just like the newest Covid surge. Why, you ask?

Because I don’t want to organize a fundraising event I can’t attend.

Because I’m going with scientific reality versus magical thinking about a deadly virus that could make me disappear.

Because my professional judgment based on 30 years in this field is that an in-person event where people have to be on their guard about a highly-contagious, life-threatening disease doesn’t sound festive or like a feasible option that merits extended discussion.

Because “caveat donator” (let the donor beware) is an irresponsible standard for a non-profit.

Because the choice you make as an individual about going to an in-person gathering is different from an organization’s choice to host an in-person fundraising event during a pandemic that, yes, is still going on. This is not disability justice. This is not solidarity.

Because I’m a crip who wants to go on being part of the resistance and resisting is really hard if I’m no longer existing.

Because you may be just fine if you test positive for Covid after having had your mask off for a few minutes while you noshed at a fundraising event but the high-risk people you inevitably interact with afterwards may not be. The same goes for the attendees’ high-risk loved ones.

Because what you see as a negligible risk for a few outliers is the still-blood-chilling risk for the group of people I’m in, whose deaths and severe illness we don’t even have detailed reporting on. Even with vaccines and treatments available now, that doesn’t mean everyone has access to them. Mind you, there are still people who cannot be vaccinated or are not eligible for existing treatments.

Because, to paraphrase what I said as an HIV/AIDS test counselor in the 90s, we should all be practicing harm reduction and safer eventing.

Because harm reduction + your mental health needs = prioritizing the in-person togetherness that brings you maximum joy with the least risk. I value all of the fundraising events I’ve ever worked on but I’m pretty sure you have more meaningful options for gatherings that get your mental health needs met.

Because a commitment to racial equity includes centering the people who those “outliers” are likely to be, given the rates of disability and chronic illness in BIPOC communities. In addition to poor, older, and/or higher-weight people.

Because choosing to host an in-person fundraising event is encouraging the implicit message that the pandemic is over and things are back to “normal” whether you intend to or not.

Because fundraising event planners take a sacred oath that starts with: First, do no harm to your attendees.

Because hybrid fundraising events end up creating two tiers where non-high-risk people get to talk and hang out and socialize, and a lesser event where high-risk people are passively watching stuff on-screen that they cannot be part of.

Because if passively watching stuff on screen is enough for me then it should be enough for everyone else.

Because, yes, I am okay with non-high-risk people losing the sense of relief that everything is going back to normal because their false-positive is going to keep high-risk people in danger that much longer.

Because your relief in going back to “normal” is my grief in being sent back to the margins where attending in-person fundraising events is tiring, stressful, and expensive, and makes me afraid that the ease that was the saving grace of the last 2 years is going to inexorably dwindle away.

Because I’ve accommodated other people’s preference for in-person fundraising events for all of my worklife and had only 2 years of not having to do things like pee-math as part of my job.

Because it bummed me out to be pitted against people with different types of disabilities who can’t access virtual fundraisers instead of being in solidarity that we can use what we’ve learned to look at such events differently.

Because high-risk people are in every donor population and intentionally planning a fundraising event where people like us can’t be present conflicts with the idea of No Funding About Us Without Us.

Because fundraising events are supposed to showcase our values, like equal access and inclusion, not conflict with them by excluding an entire class of people.

Because an in-person fundraising event is not necessary unless your mission and services are inseparable from gathering together outdoors safely, as with non-contact sport programs.

Because if there’s an organizational commitment to a principle like #NoBodyIsDisposable then fundraising cannot undermine that or the organization loses credibility and trust.

Because it matters if high-risk people aren’t at the fundraising event with you.

Because I’d be a hypocrite the size of a Republican’s ego if I organized or was associated with an in-person fundraiser before the pandemic is under control after taking other organizations to task for their lack of access and inclusion.

Because I’m a zombie-killer when it comes to the ableist, won’t-die insistence that “real” community-building can only happen face-to-face.

Because holding firm to “better safe than sorry” is what my crip-leadership looks like right now.

Because, in fundraising terms, your promised solidarity with high-risk people isn’t a pledge you can write off.

Because I can’t believe I have to actually explain this but planning a fundraiser that you know isn’t really safe isn’t the good kind of “disaster-planning.”

Because still being alive after the last two years is a privilege and I’m not going to misuse it by creating a potential superspreader hazard for other people, even if they don’t see a danger.

ABOUT

Photo of Ingrid, a middle-aged White woman with a long gray/brown ponytail who is wearing a bright blue dress and a colorful cloth face-mask. She's sitting in her wheelchair outdoors, next to a fuschia orchid. Photo credit: Christopher Egusa — Photo of Ingrid, a middle-aged White woman with a long gray/brown ponytail who is wearing a bright blue dress and a colorful cloth face-mask. She’s sitting in her wheelchair outdoors, next to a fuschia orchid. Photo credit: Christopher Egusa

Ingrid Tischer (white, she/her) has been a Bay Area–based “accidental” fundraiser and non–profit manager for 30 years, going from a women’s free clinic on Haight Street to a national cross-disability rights center. She is currently setting up a coaching-for-liberation practice focused on the emotional landscape of disability, chronic illness, and aging, to better cope with the ableism that pops up to block progress in your life, work, and creative projects. Her practice will also work with allies and organizations on how to grow a culture of access that addresses work-disability balance, disability-related implicit bias, and succession-without-stigma planning. Her blogs are www.talesfromthecrip.org and www.disabledindevelopment.org. This post is found at https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2022/05/24/why-i-wont-be-organizing-any-in-person-fundraising-events-for-the-foreseeable-future/

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Have Your Internal Controls Survived Covid?

by John Heveron

Your staff may have shrunk, and work may be both remote and on-site. So, how have your internal controls survived these changes?

See how you match up against this list of best practices. Make sure that your policies and practices are addressing these important items.

Brown-skinned young man in a suit and using a wheelchair operates a calculator while the computer screen shows an Invoice.

Be sure that every employee gets a copy of the organization’s up-to-date personnel manual. Most lawsuits come from employees and former employees.
Have a written code of conduct that describes proper ethical practices and be sure that everyone knows that they must abide by that code.
Show no tolerance for improper practices. Even minor violations should be addressed as a serious matter.
Question unusual activities. Don’t be hasty to accuse someone of wrongdoing, but be sure you understand the activity.
Develop a good budget and look at variances from that budget. Update the budget throughout the year as appropriate. When you do this, variances are red flags that deserve your attention.
Someone who is not involved with billing or accounting should initially receive incoming payments and record them on a deposit ticket or in a separate place.
Incoming checks should be stamped “for deposit only” as soon as they are received.
The monthly bank statement (checks, electronic payments, etc.) should be reviewed by someone who does not prepare checks. If you do not get check images, request them or change your banking relationship.
Mark invoices to show that they have been reviewed and paid.
Credit card statements should be received and reviewed by an independent person. There should be proper documentation for all charges.
After checks are prepared, they should be submitted to the check signer with original invoices. Invoices should then be marked paid to prevent reuse.
Someone who is not involved in preparing payroll (entering payroll information or calling it into a service bureau) should review payroll reports to be sure that hours and rates are proper.
Accounting and other important data should be backed up, verified and stored off-site.
Log off or shut down computers at night.
Anti-virus, anti-spam, and Internet firewalls should all be implemented and kept up-to-date.
Surge protectors or battery backups should be in place.
Any laptops or mobile devices with access to your server should be password-protected, and possibly encrypted.
Have someone review error logs and run software updates regularly.
Computer access should be limited with passwords and physical controls.

Changes Coming for QuickBooks

Contributed by John Heveron

Starting with the 2022 version, QuickBooks is being sold by annual subscription only. They still have a local version as well as QuickBooks Online (which is what QuickBooks prefers to sell).

If you choose to purchase the 2022 local version of QuickBooks, it connects to the Internet and any upgrades are automatic. Presumably it also checks whether your subscription has expired.

According to a QuickBooks representative, if you buy the 2022 subscription you will also get 2023 for free, but if you wait until 2023, you will only get that one year subscription.

Quicken went to a subscription model a while ago, and when the subscription is up, you no longer have access to the program without an additional subscription.

QuickBooks states that they are doing this to help assure that the program is up-to-date and secure, and so their support team will not be working with versions that they are not familiar with. They did not say anything about the obvious boost to their revenue that this will mean.

Older local versions through 2021 presumably will continue to operate as in the past. However, QuickBooks drops a version of the program from its support each year. 2018 is no longer supported, 2019 is next.

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