ExemptWatch watches your chapters' IRS filing status continuously and alerts you — and them — before it becomes a crisis.
Continuous monitoring. No spreadsheets. Peace of mind.
Federal law requires every tax-exempt chapter to file an annual return with the IRS. Miss three years in a row and IRS recognition of tax-exempt status is automatically lost — no warning, no appeal, no exceptions. This is not a penalty the IRS chooses to impose. It happens automatically by statute the moment the third consecutive year is missed.
When that happens, the chapter loses its federal tax-exempt status, donations are no longer deductible for donors, state tax exemptions may lapse, and grant eligibility disappears. The chapter keeps operating as if nothing changed — and often does for months before anyone realizes the problem exists.
The root cause is not negligence. It is the structural reality of volunteer-led organizations: officers turn over annually, institutional knowledge disappears with them, and nobody at the chapter level remembers what was filed, when, or by whom.
Large organizations with dedicated compliance staff can manage this manually. Most grand lodges, national fraternities, and mid-size nonprofits cannot. And filing platforms that track chapters only see chapters that file through them — they have no visibility into what the IRS actually has on record.
ExemptWatch monitors every chapter directly against IRS public records — regardless of how or where they file.
Three steps to complete visibility over your organization's compliance status.
Upload a CSV with your chapter names, EINs, and secretary contact information. ExemptWatch validates each EIN against IRS records, retrieves current filing history, and assigns an initial compliance status to every chapter — automatically.
Every month, ExemptWatch cross-references your entire chapter roster against the IRS Auto-Revocation List and public 990 filing records. When a chapter's status changes — or when a filing deadline is approaching without a confirmed filing — you know immediately.
ExemptWatch sends deadline reminders directly to your chapter secretaries on your behalf — 60 days out, 30 days out, and on the deadline itself. For chapters that have already missed a filing, escalating alerts keep the issue visible until it is resolved.
One dashboard. Every chapter. Current status at a glance.
Filing status, upcoming deadlines, and at-risk chapters — updated monthly from IRS public records.
Every chapter is instantly classified as Current, Due Soon, At Risk, or Revoked. No interpretation required.
See every chapter with a filing due in the next 60 days that has not yet filed, so you can act before the deadline passes.
Reminder emails go to chapter secretaries under your organization's name, not ours. You stay in control of the relationship.
Every status change is logged with a timestamp and source. If your group exemption status is ever questioned, your monitoring record speaks for itself.
When a chapter's IRS recognition of tax-exempt status is automatically revoked, the consequences extend well beyond the reinstatement process itself.
During the period between revocation and reinstatement — which typically takes six months to a year — the chapter is operating as a taxable entity. Donations made during that period may not be tax-deductible to donors. State income and property tax exemptions may lapse. Grant eligibility disappears. Banking relationships built on exempt status come into question.
Then there is the reinstatement itself: IRS user fees of $400–$850, back filings for every year missed, and in most cases, accounting or legal counsel to navigate the process. The minimum cost is over $1,000 before professional fees are added. And research suggests that only about 1 in 5 organizations that lose exempt status ever successfully reinstate — most simply never recover.
The filing requirement that triggers all of this is straightforward to monitor. ExemptWatch does it automatically, for every chapter in your organization, every month.
Recent IRS guidance formally requires central organizations holding group exemption rulings to annually obtain, review, and retain information on whether subordinate organizations are filing their required annual returns and maintaining their tax-exempt status.
This is no longer a best practice. It is a regulatory obligation. Parent organizations that cannot demonstrate active oversight of their chapters' annual filing compliance put their own group exemption ruling at risk.
ExemptWatch provides the monitoring infrastructure and the documented audit trail that satisfies this requirement — automatically, every month.
One subscription covers your entire organization.
Individual chapters do not pay separately.
One subscription covers your entire organization — individual chapters do not pay separately. Contact us to discuss the right plan for your organization's size.
If you oversee subordinate chapters with independent filing requirements,
ExemptWatch was designed for your situation.
Monitor subordinate lodges across your organization, including chapters with complex group exemption arrangements.
Track alumni chapters, collegiate chapters, and associate chapters across all active organizations.
Oversee valleys, courts, and temples with differing fiscal years and filing requirements.
Monitor grand chapter and subordinate chapter compliance with a single dashboard.
Any parent organization with chartered chapters that file independently.
Collegiate and alumni chapter compliance monitoring without the administrative burden.
Upload your chapter roster and ExemptWatch will have a complete compliance picture of your organization within minutes. No implementation project. No IT involvement. No manual research.
Questions before you subscribe? Contact us at hello@exemptwatch.com