Fraternal Nonprofit Accountability Record

PROBLEM: US fraternal organizations operating under the lodge system hold tax exemption under IRC §501(c)(8) (fraternal beneficiary societies) or §501(c)(10) (domestic fraternal societies), and must file annual Form 990-series returns — with automatic revocation after three consecutive missed filings. The exemption and the filing record are public, but they are scattered across IRS databases and state corporate registries, so a citizen checking a lodge's nonprofit standing has to search in several places at once.

SOLUTION: A fraternal nonprofit accountability record: the exemption section, the recognition filing, the annual returns, and the revocation status logged in one place — so a lodge's nonprofit standing is checkable in a single record.

EVIDENCE BASIS: DOCUMENTED — IRC §§501(c)(8), (c)(10) (lodge-system fraternal organizations); Form 1024 recognition application; Form 990 / 990-EZ / 990-N annual filing thresholds; automatic revocation after three missed years. As of December 2002 the IRS counted ~100,800 fraternal organizations (78,000 under (c)(8), 22,800 under (c)(10)). Sources: IRS EO guidance (Publication 557; IRS TEGE topic); legalclarity.org.