How to File Your PTA's Form 990: The 990-N and 990-EZ, Step by Step

Which IRS Form 990 your PTA files depends on how much it takes in. A PTA with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less files the free 990-N e-Postcard online in minutes. Larger PTAs file the 990-EZ or the full 990. The return is due on the 15th day of the fifth month after your fiscal year ends.

I served as PTA treasurer for three years across two districts, for PTAs of various sizes, plus other board roles. I have both self-filed and organized all of our PTA’s information to hand off to a CPA who filed on our behalf. I’m not a tax accountant, and handling my own taxes is intimidating enough, so the thought of doing it for the PTA seemed even more daunting. It doesn’t have to be. As it turns out, a few simple habits make a big difference.

One note before we start: Volo Cash is not a law or accounting firm, and this is general information, not tax advice. The thresholds and steps below are the federal rules, but for anything specific to your organization, check with your council or state PTA and a tax professional.

Which 990 does your PTA file?

Which version you file comes down to your gross receipts, the total money your PTA received during the year:

• Gross receipts normally $50,000 or less: the 990-N e-Postcard, filed free online. There is no paper version.
• More than $50,000 and under $200,000, with total assets under $500,000: the 990-EZ.
• Above either limit: the full 990.

The word doing the work there is normally. The IRS measures it as a rolling average, so one unusual year does not automatically move you up a form. For example, if your PTA usually collects about $30,000 a year and this year you collect $90,000, the three-year rolling average is ($30k + $30k + $90k) / 3 = $50k. That’s a 990-N. But in that same example, a few dollars more in any of those three years would bump you up to the 990-EZ.

When it’s due

Your 990 is due the 15th day of the fifth month after your fiscal year ends. Most PTAs run a July 1 to June 30 year, which puts the deadline at November 15. A PTA on a calendar year files by May 15.

If you need more time on a 990-EZ or full 990, Form 8868 gets you an automatic six-month extension, no explanation required. The 990-N has no extension, and it does not need one, because there is no monetary penalty for filing the e-Postcard late. The deadline that carries real weight is the three-year one further down.

How to file the 990-N, step by step

For many PTAs, the annual filing is the 990-N, and you can do the whole thing yourself in one sitting, for free, without an accountant. You file it directly with the IRS through the Form 990-N Electronic Filing System.

Two things to know before you begin:

• Use a computer, not a phone or tablet. The IRS filing system asks you to, and it behaves better on a desktop or laptop.
• You sign in with an ID.me or Login.gov account, or an existing IRS username. These accounts are personal and identity-verified, ID.me checks your own photo ID, so they are not something you hand to the next treasurer. When a new treasurer takes over, they set up their own free account and file for the PTA using its EIN.

Have this information on hand. All of it lives in your PTA’s records:

• Your EIN (the employer identification number)
• The tax year you are filing for
• The PTA’s legal name and mailing address, plus any other names it goes by
• The name and address of a principal officer, usually the president
• Your website, if you have one
• Confirmation that your gross receipts were $50,000 or less

You confirm the details above, answer whether the PTA is still operating, and submit. Save the confirmation you get back, a screenshot or the confirmation page, with your permanent records. That confirmation is your proof you filed, and should be kept where future treasurers can find it.

Filing the 990-EZ

If your PTA’s gross receipts are normally above $50,000, you file the 990-EZ instead. You report revenue and expenses by category, your net assets, and a short description of what the PTA did during the year, along with a list of officers. It also comes with a schedule or two, most often Schedule A, which confirms your public-charity status and accompanies nearly every 990-EZ a PTA files.

Like the 990-N, the 990-EZ has to be filed electronically, through an IRS-authorized e-file provider (the IRS keeps the full list of approved providers, where recognizable names like TaxAct and Intuit sit next to filers built specifically for nonprofits). Here is a range of options from that list, including the IRS’s own free system, and what each charges (verified July 2026):

A few things worth knowing before you pick one:

• The 990-N is free directly through the IRS (and free at Tax1099), so the other 990-N prices only buy a provider’s reminders or stored records. The 990-EZ has no free IRS system, which is where a provider comes in, though Form 990 Online files it free when your gross receipts are under $100,000.
• TaxAct sells one tax-exempt product that covers whichever 990 you file, plus a per-state fee, so it sits above the single-form filers.
• Every provider here is on the IRS’s approved e-file list. That list and the prices on it change, so check the current figure before you file, and watch for extra charges on state filings or added schedules.

The full 990

If your gross receipts reach $200,000 or your total assets reach $500,000, you’ll need the full 990: a twelve-page core form that adds functional expense reporting, a set of governance and policy questions, compensation detail, and a fuller stack of schedules on top of the revenue and expenses the 990-EZ already covers. Like the others, it has to be e-filed.

This is the point where bringing in a bookkeeper or accountant, at least for the first year at this size, is usually worth it. A PTA large enough to file the full 990 generally has the budget for a few hours of help. Plenty of these PTAs still keep their own books all year and hand a clean set of numbers to the preparer, which should keep costs down.

Set a reminder

A PTA that does not file its 990 for three years in a row loses its tax-exempt status. It happens automatically, with no warning letter like the ones you might get for your personal taxes. The PTA lands on a public IRS list of revoked organizations, donations to it stop being tax deductible, and it can owe income tax.

A revoked PTA can apply to be reinstated, and small organizations have a streamlined path back. Because the treasurer role turns over so often, a missed year usually comes from a gap between an outgoing and an incoming treasurer. The safest setup is to make the 990 a standing task that hands off with the role, so the filing never falls into that summer gap.

A reminder in Volo Cash carries its own instructions, so the how, not just the what, hands off to the next treasurer.

Where Volo Cash helps

Whichever form you file, the 990 asks for totals you should already have: money in, money out by category, and what the PTA is worth at year end. When your books are current, filing is a matter of reading those numbers off a report.

Volo Cash keeps every deposit and payment in one running ledger against its budget line, so the gross-receipts figure that tells you which form to file, and the revenue and expense totals a 990-EZ asks for, are already summed. The annual financial report your PTA prepares anyway becomes the same set of numbers you carry onto the return. And because reminders in Volo Cash belong to a role rather than a person, the “file the 990 by November 15” task hands off to the next treasurer on its own, so it survives the summer turnover that is usually how a filing slips.

Filing the 990 is one piece of the job. The complete PTA treasurer handbook walks through the rest, from the budget to the year-end financial review, and you can try Volo Cash free for three months.