Can our supporters club legally accept donations?

I'm a member of a new soccer supporters club in New York state (We currently haven't formed Non-Profit, LLC, etc). We have been considering our options to help fund our activities and the idea of accepting donations has surfaced and it gaining serious consideration among our members. Before we place a PayPal donation button to our website, we are wondering if we can legally accept donations or do we have to form a Non-Profit first to do so?

2012-06-14T17:28:18Z

How would the supporters club file taxes if we haven't acquired a tax ID?

Sorry for the stupid question, but we want to go about this the cheapest legal way possible!

?2012-06-14T17:26:01Z

Favorite Answer

You can accept donations, but still you have to report them to the IRS and then they will decide if you qualify or not for the exemption.

Being a non-profit organization doesn't mean you don't have to report and pay taxes.

To be exempted from federal taxes, the organizations have to meet certain IRS rules to qualified (if it were as easy as just forming the non-profit organization then EVERYBODY would make one)

==EDIT==

You have to apply for the tax ID.

This link might be usefully for you:

Nonprofit Law -- Tax ID for Sports team
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Nonprofit-Law-2266/2009/11/Tax-ID-Sports-team.htm

Anonymous2012-06-14T17:12:54Z

You do not have to form a non-profit unless you want to let your donors be able to deduct their donations from their taxes. If you do not say it is deductible, you can accept donations. You will have to pay taxes on those donations (federal, and perhap state).

ferranti2016-12-05T15:14:00Z

you could't supply away the money with none concerns because of the fact the IRS desires to tax you on your earnings. Even funds we make from our investments, like shares and mutual money would desire to be taxed. installation a non-earnings is somewhat complicated, costly, and time ingesting relating to keeping your organization contemporary. i do no longer recognize of or can think of of any loop holes on the 2d. i'd touch the IRS. For the main section, they're good approximately answering those questions.