Hendersonville Times-News-Federal government scrutinizing finances of nonprofits

Hendersonville Times-News: "Federal government scrutinizing finances of nonprofits
Overhauls of various financial reporting and financial responsibilities for charities and foundations continues as a topic of interest at the federal level. The Senate Finance Committee held hearings in April on misconduct attributed to nonprofit organizations. This is a continuation of the adoption of Sarbannes-Oxley a few years ago.

The legislation originally paid attention to financial practices in the business world, but has increasingly turned attention to the nonprofit community.

Last month, I was sent copies of articles relating to these hearings that occurred during that time. The first was an op-ed piece from The Wall Street Journal, 'Death by Bureaucracy,' written by Heather R. Higgins, the co-founder of the Alliance for Charitable Reform (www.ACreform.com). The author called attention to the destructive nature of the potential actions that might come from the Senate Finance Committee hearings. She argued that the the responses would be overkill, raising the costs of operation for all nonprofits when only a few are guilty of misconduct. The writer suggests that a more appropriate action would be for the committee to study the real extent of abuse instead of relying on abuses discovered while reviewing a handful of organizations. "