Poimen wrote:Tim, I'd love to get together with you and figure this out better. Maybe we could arrange to meet for lunch, on me of course, and you can get me pointed in the right direction?
Btw, I've been looking through online services ot help ... legalzoom, startchurch, corporatesole, etc.
I'm not sure it's even still allowed in Alabama, but is Corporate sole or Corporate aggregate a viable option as well? As I understand the corporate sole would be under a different 501, but would still allow for tax exempt status. And I would still need to incorporate the financial arm of the corporate sole (a corporation of the corporate sole) as a 501c3, but I wouldn't have to actually create bylaws, boards, etc, to get started legally. The ministry would be mine, occupied by me, and I can appoint other officers/offices as needed.
Don't outsmart yourself. And, get your terminology straight, too. First, I think you're complicating life for yourself if you try to act as a corporation sole. You have a burden to show that you are bishop appointed by a diocese in order to meet the barest threshhold for that. You will have to create an entity over yourself (a diocese). Just too many layers. Corporation soles are almost unheard of anymore. In fact, I find only one listed in the Alabama Secretary of State's website, the archbishop of Mobile. A cursory search of Alabama case law in the last 50 years reveals only the Archbishop of Mobile as a party in a recorded appellate case involving a corporation sole. The attorneys' fees for doing it right --- and the tax consequences of doing it wrong --- are both so high that you don't really want to go there, in spite of what ANY website says.
Secondly, under Alabama's business entities act, a corporation sole is not listed as a non-profit corporation type, which means you'll have to bear more administrative burdens of proving the non-profit nature of the entity in order to even incorporate as a non-profit.
And, this brings me to my point about terminology. There is no such thing, truly, as "incorporating as a 501(c)(3)". You can incorporate as a non-profit corporation, but 501(c)(3) is an IRS determination of tax exempt status. 501(c)(3) does not equal non-profit. Non-profit is non-profit, and may or may not be tax exempt under 501(c). Churches, however, which are easy enough to create on paper for corporation purposes, are always exempt from taxation**, without the need for applying for tax-exempt status under 501(c)(3), pursuant to 508(c)(1)(A). A corporation sole is not necessarily such an entity. Repeat: A corporation sole is not necessarily such an entity. You can be a corporation sole but not qualify as a church for 508(c)(1)(A) (meaning you'd still have to apply for 501(c)(3) treatment, unlike a church corporation that is automatically 501(c)(3) exempt). The way the IRS treats the corporation may be counterintuitive to the way you think it should simply because a corporation sole can "dba" as a "church" under state law. I'm telling you, brother ---- avoid the corporation sole. They are used in only 16 states, and they are the topic of tax advice scams and have become used by a growing but still small number of people the IRS aims to get. Don't be that guy.
Do it straight up, do it like every other church does it. Don't reinvent something. Spend your innovation on winning people and growing them. Don't outsmart yourself on forming the basic organization of this.
**"Always" is overbroad. Churches may be exempt, but not all INCOME type are tax exempt. Churches, although 501(c)(3) entities, may still generate taxable income. Churches must still file Form 990s each year to report income and type so that the IRS can see if a church has a tax liability although it is tax exempt.
Human government bears the same relation to hell as the church bears to heaven. (David Lipscomb, On Civil Government, 72).