ZOA Regains Tax-Exempt Status

Image by naomi zeveloff
The Internal Revenue Service reinstated the tax-exempt status of the Zionist Organization of America.
“The work of the ZOA has never been altered or diminished one iota during this period,” ZOA President Morton Klein said in a statement Monday announcing the May 15 IRS decision. “Our campus work; our Title VI efforts; our Capitol Hill work; our writings, lectures, TV and radio appearances have continued as always.”
The IRS a year ago rescinded the tax-exempt status because ZOA had not filed a tax return for three consecutive years.
Klein told JTA last year that the failures to file were due to confusion over the status of a school in Israel run under ZOA auspices, and because of erroneous advice from a tax accountant.
Donations to ZOA have remained deductible in the meantime, as they were directed through a third party donor-advised fund.
In the same announcement, ZOA said its annual dinner, to be held in November, will honor former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, now a talk show personality, as well as benefactor James Tisch.
ZOA canceled its annual dinner in 2012.
Thousands of Forward readers support our nonprofit newsroom.
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
