Last week, Francien contacted all projects active in 2019 and/or 2020 about the way the tax return has been filled out. As you know, the reason for this is a letter that the Forerunner Foundation received from the Dutch tax authorities regarding payments to third parties.
Complex questions
We would like to keep you informed of the process. We have decided to involve an external accountant who is specialised in ANBI foundations. The question we get is not surprising (many foundations get this question) but in our case the answer is quite complex. Because what we are doing does not clearly fit into an existing pigeonhole with the tax authorities. We want to make a careful, professional assessment of how we report this because the consequences could be far-reaching.
Payments to individuals
When we have received formal advice about what we are going to declare and how, we will inform you again.
In any case, it is already clear that payments to companies (or self-employed people) do not fall under this heading, so if you as a missionary declare the income through Forerunner via your own company, we will not declare this to the tax authorities under 'payments to third parties'.
It may come down to the fact that we ultimately do not declare anything at all (on this specific question) with the justification that we have not commissioned any work. But this depends on the advice we get from the ANBI specialist.
Advice from the tax authorities
Some background information: for years there has been uncertainty about how missionaries (who have to pay tax in the Netherlands) should report their income to the tax authorities.
Several people have called the tax authorities and asked questions, also from the board of Forerunner (Johan, at that time). This gave rise to various answers and recommendations. For this reason, we have always said that we do not provide general information or advice on this, but that everyone should ask about it for their own situation.
Steps ahead For the missionaries personally - if we fill in the payments that we have made, and you have not indicated that you had other income, this could mean that you will receive a notice from the tax authorities. As a foundation - we assume that we are going to be in the picture with the tax authorities by our reaction to this letter (whether or not we report payments). We think so, because both possible answers (no payments or a whole list of payments) are striking. Therefore, we are already checking with the ANBI expert whether our current construction is still good enough and where we can possibly expect questions.
All this could possibly have consequences for our ANBI status (although we have always met all the conditions to the best of our knowledge and ability).
Forerunner in motion
A heads-up: if we tighten our construction a bit on the advice of the ANBI expert, this might result in some extra administration for you. Think for example of working with budgets or submitting a small annual report every year. We will do our best not to create an unnecessary administrative burden, but what we do now is very minimal and will probably have to be expanded.
Also with regard to privacy legislation (AVG), we have been working behind the scenes to better comply with the law. You will hear more about this in the coming half year and this will also bring some changes. We will keep you informed!
What does it depend on now?
In short, as a board we try to take steps in honesty and wisdom. In all of this, we realize that the tax authorities are absolutely not the ones who decide whether we (all the projects at Forerunner) can walk in our calling... God has everything in His hand. He is our Source. We are not dependent on the financial system of this world. We are only dependent on our Father who sustains us. He is our 'commissioner' and also our provider. Therefore, we ask you to remain with us in His peace and quiet and bring the situation to prayer.
We take the situation seriously and we take the necessary steps, but we are not worried. We are as safe as ever, in His hand. So... who's losing sleep over this? We hope no one ☺
Our source is Jesus, who is the radiance of God's glory! The exact imprimt of God's nature... He upholds the whole universe through His powerful Word (Hebrews 1:3).
Many blessings and we will keep you posted!
What is Forerunner?
We exist to establish prayer and justice in the nations. We work together with friends, organizations and ministries around the world to see this vision become reality.
