How much do you know—or care to know—about the wide variety of not-for-profit organizations that are recognized by the US government in the IRS tax code? Perhaps not much, and that’s fine, of course. I hope you know and see it as appropriate that TAA is a non-profit. Indeed we are, but recently have undergone a classification change. I hope you’ll indulge me in this brief column while I explain the importance of that change.

In December 2019, the IRS officially agreed to reclassify TAA from a 501(c)6 organization to a 501(c)3. The odd alpha-numeric classification system is of no interest, but you might like to know that our former classification is more often applied to entities that are akin to labor unions. That’s not crazy, because TAA does advocate for the interests and needs of authors, as a labor union might. But we’re not quite analogous to a labor union. For example, when TAA advocates a position, we take into consideration, and intend to benefit, the entire community of authors – even those who aren’t currently TAA members.