Form 990-PF, Return of Private Foundation, as the name suggests, is the tax return of private foundations. Like individuals file Form 1040 to report everything to the Internal Revenue Service, US private foundations need to enter the information asked to fulfill tax obligations. On the 990-DF, a private foundation that is located in the United States will report fiscal data, names of the trustees and officers, complete grants, and application information.
Form 990-PF is a quite complex form that you may need a professional tax preparer to file. Overall, information gathering and filing Form 990-PF takes more than 12 hours in total, and entering any wrong information requires the private foundation to re-file by amending the return. Return of Private Foundation is made up of 17 different parts, in each where the filer needs to report a variety of information. The instructions to file Form 990-PF are attached below.
Current instructions for 990-PF
Here is what to expect when filing Form 990-PF. Make sure you go over the instructions for 2024 - 2025 so that you don’t enter anything incorrectly, which can turn into a headache in the long run.
- Revenue and expenses
- Balance sheets
- Analysis of changes in net assets or fund balances
- Capital gains and losses for tax on investment income
- Qualification under section 4940(e)
- Excise tax based on investment income
- Statements for business activities
- Statements for business activities where Form 4720 is needed
- Officer, director, trustees, foundation manager, contractor, and highly compensated employee information
- Information about direct charitable activities
- Information about Program-related investments
- Minimum investment return
- Distributable income
- Qualifying distribution
- Undistributed income
- Private operating foundations
- Supplementary information
- Information about income-producing activities
- Information about transfers and transactions with non-charitable exempt organizations
The above list represents what to expect when filing Form 990-PF, from top to bottom. As it can be seen, it’s a lot more complex than a regular return filed by other types of corporations. It is crucial for filers of Form 990-PF to care what to enter on the form and look at the instructions thoroughly for every line.