What a charity has to show you.

The IRS publishes the same filings itself, and its copy takes no request and no fee. Search the organization by name or EIN in the Tax Exempt Organization Search, which carries determination letters and available returns. Ask the organization directly for what is missing there, or when you want the exact copy it filed, including every schedule and attachment.

An exempt organization must make available for public inspection and copying its exemption application, which means the Form 1023, Form 1024 or the letter it submitted instead, together with the supporting documents and any letter or document the IRS issued about that application. That is where the determination letter lives.

It must also make available its annual return: Form 990, Form 990-EZ, Form 990-PF, Form 990-BL or Form 1065, as applicable. A section 501(c)(3) organization must additionally make available its Form 990-T, the return for unrelated business income, filed after 17 August 2006.

A return has to stay available for three years, counted from the due date including any extension, or from the date it was actually filed if that is later. What you are entitled to is an exact copy of the return, and of any amended return, with all schedules, attachments and supporting documents filed with the IRS.

Ask in person at the organization's principal office during regular business hours and the request will generally be honored the same day. An organization that keeps regional or district offices with three or more employees must answer at those offices too.

Ask in writing and it generally has 30 days to respond. A request sent by fax, by email or by private courier counts as a written request.

Inspection is free. For copies the organization may charge a reasonable copying fee plus the actual postage. Reasonable is defined by reference to what the IRS itself charges: under the Freedom of Information Act schedule, 20 cents per page for a non-commercial requester.

If you did not include adequate payment, the organization must tell you the approximate cost and the acceptable form of payment within seven days of receiving your request, and it may require payment before it provides the copies. For an in-person request it must accept cash and money order. For a written request it must accept certified check, money order, and personal check or credit card.

An organization does not have to answer individual requests for copies if it has made the documents widely available, which means posting them on a readily accessible website, its own or a database maintained by someone else. The posted version has to reproduce the image of the original document exactly and let anyone access, download, view and print it without paying a fee. PDF is a format that meets those criteria. An organization relying on this must tell requesters how to reach the documents.

This exception covers copies only. The duty to let you inspect the documents in person survives it.

The names and addresses of contributors on the annual return, including Schedule B, are excluded from what has to be disclosed. Two kinds of organization are outside that exclusion: a private foundation, whose contributors are disclosable, and a political organization under section 527, which must make its contributor information public.

Contributor names and addresses listed on the exemption application are a different matter and are subject to disclosure. Schedule K-1 of Form 1065 and Schedule A of Form 990-BL do not have to be disclosed.

Responsible persons who fail to provide the documents may be penalized 20 dollars a day for as long as the failure continues, up to 10,000 dollars for each annual return. There is no maximum for failing to provide the exemption application.

Complaints go to the IRS. Write to EO Classification, Mail Code 4910, 1100 Commerce Street, Dallas, Texas 75242, giving the organization's name and address and what it refused, or use Form 13909. The IRS says it will contact the organization and arrange a time for the documents to be inspected.

A return is a filing, not a verdict. It shows what an organization reported for a year that has already closed, on forms designed for the IRS rather than for you. It does not say whether a program worked, whether a gift you are about to make will be spent the way the appeal describes, or whether the organization is registered with your state. The state question has its own answer.