The Law of Tax-Exempt Organizations, 12th Edition

Preface

One of the major highlights of my life is writing books, published by John Wiley & Sons, about the tax law applicable to nonprofit organizations. I began doing this in the early 1970s and have not stopped. I authored or coauthored 40 books during these years; more await. The Law of Tax-Exempt Organizations, however, remains special, inasmuch as it is the first book I wrote. I find it extraordinary that the book is now in its twelfth edition, covering developments in the federal law of tax-exempt organizations for the period ending in the fall of 2018.

By the time this edition is available, the book will have been in print for nearly 45 years. Sometimes, I shudder, thinking of the thousands of hours that underlie this and my other writing projects. Certainly the field of tax-exempt organizations law has been dynamic, volatile at times; the fact that this book is now in its twelfth edition is testament to the complexity of the subject matter and its astonishing and steady growth. In fact, the number of books in the Wiley Nonprofit Law, Finance, and Management Series, and the wonderful range of that material, evidences the explosiveness of the nonprofit sector over recent decades.

Most of the law reflected in this book did not exist 45 years ago. Tax exemption was introduced, constitutionally, in 1913, and the unrelated business income rules arrived in 1950. A considerable portion of the statutory law of exempt organizations is the product of enactment of the Tax Reform ...