FCYC
Protecting FWYC’s 501(c) (7) Tax Exempt Status
T
he Smyrna Yacht Club and the Florida Council of Yacht Clubs
hosted a memorable Veteran’s Day program for the November
General Membership Meeting. Your Director P/C Tom Reynolds
and I were much impressed with SYC theme of honoring veterans
with a Sundowner Ceremony that included a six plane fly-over salute
(three of the pilots were Club members) and a guest speaker, who served
as a MASH unit surgical nurse during the Vietnam war. The business meeting featured Chip Hardy, a CPA, a past commodore of Tampa Y&CC and a
past commodore of FCYC speaking on his areas of expertise “Principles
of Tax Exempt Status”.
FCYC Directors come from the ranks of past Club’s leadership with
many having served as commodore of their respective Club. For them
Chip’s presentation was very much a refresher course. At FWYC we
rely on our officers and directors to apply IRS rules in a manner that
protects our tax exempt status. You have probably wondered why
our leaders do as they do to protect our tax exempt status, so I
would like to share with you bits of Chip’s presentation. For
starters our Club is a nonprofit membership corporation
formed for the pleasure and recreational purposes of OUR
MEMBERS.
Parties of eight or fewer guests: We are allowed to bring
nonmember guests to the Club. And guests are ideally
just that – guests whereby the Club member pays for their
guest. Club record keeping allows us to differentiate these
hosted guests from nonmembers, who are part of the general public. When records are not maintained to establish this
host-guest relationship, the revenue is considered non-member
receipts and we are restricted on how much income we can receive
in this category.
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