To report a nonprofit to the IRS, file Form 13909, the Tax-Exempt Organization Complaint (Referral) Form, with the agency’s TEGE Referrals Group. The form asks you to identify the organization, check the type of violation, and describe what happened, and you can submit it by mail, fax, or email, with or without your name attached. If the misconduct also involves misuse of charitable assets under state law, a parallel complaint to your state attorney general is often worth filing at the same time.
What the IRS Will Actually Act On
Not every complaint about a nonprofit falls within the IRS’s authority. The agency looks at conduct that threatens the organization’s tax-exempt purpose. Form 13909 lists the categories, and matching your facts to one of them makes the referral more useful:
- Private benefit or insider enrichment, such as excessive compensation, sweetheart contracts, or favorable loans to officers, directors, or other insiders.
- Political campaign activity by a 501(c)(3), which is absolutely prohibited for or against any candidate.
- Substantial lobbying by a 501(c)(3). Some lobbying is allowed; devoting a substantial part of activities to influencing legislation is not.
- Unreported employment, income, or excise taxes.
- Failure to file the annual Form 990. Three consecutive years of non-filing triggers automatic loss of exempt status.1Internal Revenue Service. Automatic Revocation of Exemption
- Deceptive fundraising that misleads donors about how contributions will be used.
- Operating a commercial business unrelated to the organization’s exempt purpose.
Internal governance disputes, contested board elections, and disagreements about religious doctrine are not what the IRS reviews. Those are either state matters or not matters for regulators at all.
Gather Your Evidence First
A complaint backed by documentation is treated more seriously than a general accusation. Pull together financial statements, bank records, internal emails, meeting minutes, promotional materials, and fundraising solicitations. Put everything in chronological order so an examiner can tie specific acts to specific tax years.
You also need to identify the organization. The best identifier is the nine-digit Employer Identification Number, which appears on the first page of the organization’s Form 990. Nonprofits are required to make their 990s publicly available.2Internal Revenue Service. Public Disclosure and Availability of Exempt Organization Returns and Applications – Public Disclosure Overview The IRS runs a free Tax Exempt Organization Search where you can look up any registered nonprofit and download its recent filings.3Internal Revenue Service. Tax Exempt Organization Search If you cannot find the EIN, Form 13909 will also accept a state nonprofit corporation registration number.4Internal Revenue Service. Form 13909 The 990 is also useful because it lists officers and board members by name.
Filling Out and Filing Form 13909
Form 13909 is short. You check the type of violation, provide the organization’s name and identifying information, and write a narrative explaining what happened.4Internal Revenue Service. Form 13909 Be specific in the narrative. Name the individuals involved, give dates, and explain how the conduct falls outside the organization’s exempt purpose. “The executive director approved a $50,000 payment to her husband’s consulting firm in March 2025” gives an examiner something to work with. “Money is being mismanaged” does not. In the narrative, tie each attached document to the point it proves.
Attach your supporting documentation to the completed form. There are three ways to submit the package:5Internal Revenue Service. IRS Complaint Process – Tax-Exempt Organizations
- Mail to TEGE Referrals Group, 1100 Commerce Street, MC 4910 DAL, Dallas, TX 75242.
- Fax to 214-413-5415.
- Email to eoclass@irs.gov.
You can file anonymously. If you include your name and mailing address, the IRS will send an acknowledgment letter confirming that your referral was received. Anonymous filers will not receive that letter, but their complaints are still reviewed.5Internal Revenue Service. IRS Complaint Process – Tax-Exempt Organizations Keep copies of the completed form, every document you attached, and any acknowledgment you receive.
What Happens After You File
The review is confidential and one-way. Under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, the IRS cannot disclose return information about any taxpayer or organization, which means you will not be told whether an examination was opened, what it found, or what action was taken.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6103 – Confidentiality and Disclosure of Returns and Return Information The organization also will not learn your identity from the IRS. Because you generally do not get a second chance to supplement the referral, make the initial submission as complete as you can.
When a review leads to an examination, outcomes range from corrective action to full revocation of tax-exempt status. For insider enrichment specifically, the IRS can impose intermediate sanctions under Section 4958. A disqualified person who received an excess benefit faces an initial excise tax of 25 percent of that benefit, and organization managers who knowingly participated face a separate 10 percent tax. If the insider does not return the excess benefit within the correction period, a second tax of 200 percent of the benefit applies.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4958 – Taxes on Excess Benefit Transactions Organizations that skip required returns for three consecutive years lose exempt status automatically.1Internal Revenue Service. Automatic Revocation of Exemption
If Substantial Tax Dollars Are at Stake: The Whistleblower Award
Form 13909 is a referral. It does not pay anything. If the underlying tax violations involve significant sums, a separate program may pay you a percentage of what the IRS collects. The IRS Whistleblower Office pays between 15 and 30 percent of the total amount collected when the agency acts on information a whistleblower provides.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 7623 – Expenses of Detection of Underpayments and Fraud
To qualify for a mandatory award, the tax, penalties, and interest in dispute must exceed $2 million. If the target is an individual taxpayer, their gross income must exceed $200,000 in at least one of the relevant tax years. Claims below the $2 million threshold are still considered for a discretionary award, though the amounts tend to be smaller. Whistleblower claims are submitted on Form 211, not Form 13909, and must be signed under penalty of perjury. Current and former Treasury employees, and federal employees who obtained the information through their official duties, are not eligible.9Internal Revenue Service. Submit a Whistleblower Claim for Award If your own actions contributed to the violation, the award can be reduced or denied; a criminal conviction related to the underlying conduct bars any award entirely.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 7623 – Expenses of Detection of Underpayments and Fraud
When to Also File With the State
Federal and state authorities cover different ground. The IRS focuses on tax-exempt status. State attorneys general enforce fiduciary duty and charitable trust law, and their investigations tend to focus on diversion of charitable assets, self-dealing by board members, excessive compensation, deceptive solicitation, and failure to register or file required state reports. When the same conduct crosses both, filing at both levels at the same time is common.
A state attorney general can file civil suits to recover misused charitable assets, remove officers or board members, dissolve an organization, or block a sale or conversion that harms the charity. They generally will not intervene in internal policy disagreements, contested elections, or disputes over religious doctrine, and they cannot act as your personal attorney or sue to recover money for you individually. To find your state’s office, the National Association of State Charity Officials maintains a directory. Most state regulators post their own complaint forms; attach the same documentation you sent the IRS. Unlike the IRS, state investigators sometimes contact complainants for clarification.
Protection From Retaliation, and One Warning
The IRS treats the identity of anyone making a referral as confidential.5Internal Revenue Service. IRS Complaint Process – Tax-Exempt Organizations Anonymous filing on Form 13909 is available if you would rather not attach your name at all. Federal criminal law adds a backstop under 18 U.S.C. § 1513(e): retaliating against someone for giving truthful information about a federal offense to law enforcement carries up to 10 years in prison. Many states also have whistleblower statutes protecting employees who report illegal activity to government agencies from being fired or disciplined; the specifics vary.
The warning is on the other side. Knowingly filing a false report is itself actionable. Under 26 U.S.C. § 7434, willfully filing a fraudulent information return exposes the filer to civil liability of at least $5,000 or actual damages, plus court costs and potentially attorney’s fees.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 7434 – Civil Damages for Fraudulent Filing of Information Returns Report what you genuinely believe to be true and let the examiners work out the rest.