The Internal Revenue Service announced June 10 that it revoked the tax-exempt status for more than 1,000 nonprofit organizations in Sacramento, though the majority of them were no longer in existence.

Those that still exist, including several Sacramento-area organizations, will have to re-file for their tax-exemption status, said IRS spokesman Jesse Weller.

“We believe that most of the organizations on the list are defunct, although some may still be in existence and just didn’t get the word,” he said.

Nationwide, the number of nonprofit organizations whose tax-exemption status was revoked was 275,000.

The revocation was an automatic action taken after the passing of a pension reform act in 2006. Nonprofit organizations are required to file paperwork with the IRS each year under the parameters of the law, and those that do not file anything for three consecutive years get their status revoked.

“This was the main action from the law change,” Weller said. “Going forward, we expect a lot less to be revoked.”

One of the Sacramento organizations that’s still in existence and had its tax-exempt status revoked was the Sacramento City Taxpayers’ Rights League, located at 2509 Capitol Ave.

The letter from the IRS came as a surprise to President Mark Whisler.

“They sent a letter saying I hadn’t filed, but we file our paperwork every year,” Whisler said. “I was surprised. Who knows? Maybe they transposed a digit in the paperwork somewhere.”

Whisler said his organization watches out for taxpayer rights in Sacramento and sued the city over the loan to Arco Arena in the 1980s.

He said he thinks the move to revoke tax-exemption status is a good one, since it should clean up the list of nonprofit organizations.

“The nonprofit database has been cluttered for years,” he said.

In his case, he said he has 30 days to reply to the IRS letter and work from there.

Weller said organizations whose nonprofit status was revoked will have to reapply for it, typically a process that takes three to six months. The fee for a small organization that takes in less than $50,000 per year amounts to $100. Larger organizations have fees from $400 to $800.

“The law required a revocation,” he said. “The IRS has no discretion over it. If it’s still in existence and wants to get back its tax-exempt status, they can reapply.”

Bob Achermann, executive director of the California-Nevada Soft Drink Association, a trade organization for soft drink bottlers, said questions from The Sacramento Press were the first things to alert him to the revocation of his tax-exemption status. The association is based in Sacramento.

“It’s not only shocking,” he said, “but we have been filing tax returns for over 40 years.”

He said the address in the list of organizations with revoked nonprofit status the IRS had an address that was 20 years old.

“We have filed tax returns all these years, under our current address, and we have filed under the same name all these years with the correct address,” he said.

Achermann said he will be doing what is necessary to retain tax-exemption status.

Weller acknowledged that some organizations could have slipped through the cracks of the IRS’ outreach campaign.

“It’s definitely true that somebody moved and didn’t get the letters or the word in some way over the last three years,” he said. “Basically, the law is clear. We don’t have the discretion to say, ‘OK, because you didn’t know about it, you can have (tax-exemption status) back.’ ”

All donations given to nonprofit organizations until the revocations went out are still recognized as tax-exempt, and Weller said that won’t present a problem on tax returns.

He recommended checking to make sure an organization is tax-exempt before making donations by checking the IRS website.

For a list of nonprofit organizations with tax-exemption status revoked by state, click here.

For a list of all nonprofit organizations by state – whose status was not revoked – click here.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.