5578 Annual Certification of Racial Nondiscrimination for a P

Form

5578

(Rev. November 2019)
Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service

Annual Certification of Racial Nondiscrimination
for a Private School Exempt From Federal Income Tax
(for use by organizations that do not file Form 990 or Form 990-EZ)
▶

OMB No. 1545-0047

Open to Public
Inspection

For IRS Use Only

Go to www.irs.gov/Form5578 for the latest information.

For the period beginning
, 20
Name of organization that operates, supervises, and/or controls school(s).
1a
Address (number and street or P.O. box no., if mail is not delivered to street address)

and ending

, 20
1b Employer identification number
Room/suite

City or town, state, and ZIP + 4 (If foreign address, list city or town, state or province, and country. Include postal code.)
2a

Name of central organization holding group exemption letter covering the school(s). (If same as 1a above, write
“Same” and complete 2c.) If the organization in 1a holds an individual exemption letter, write “Not Applicable.”

2b Employer identification number

Address (number and street or P.O. box no., if mail is not delivered to street address)

2c Group exemption number (see
instructions under Definitions)

Room/suite

City or town, state, and ZIP + 4 (If foreign address, list city or town, state or province, and country. Include postal code.)
3a

Name of school. (If more than one school, write “See Attached” and attach a list of the names, complete addresses,
including postal codes, and employer identification numbers of the schools.) If same as 1a, write “Same.”

Address (number and street or P.O. box no., if mail is not delivered to street address)

3b Employer identification number,
if any

Room/suite

City or town, state, and ZIP + 4 (If foreign address, list city or town, state or province, and country. Include postal code.)

Under penalties of perjury, I hereby certify that I am authorized to take official action on behalf of the above school(s) and that to the best of my knowledge and belief the
school(s) has (have) satisfied the applicable requirements of sections 4.01 through 4.05 of Rev. Proc. 75-50, 1975-2 C.B. 587, for the period covered by this certification.

(Signature)

For Paperwork Reduction Act Notice, see instructions.

(Type or print name and title.)
Cat. No. 42658A

(Date)
Form 5578 (Rev. 11-2019)

Page 2

Form 5578 (Rev. 11-2019)

General Instructions
Section references are to the Internal
Revenue Code unless otherwise noted.
Note: This form is open to public
inspection.

Future Developments
For the latest information about
developments related to Form 5578 and its
instructions, such as legislation enacted
after they were published, go to
www.irs.gov/Form5578.

What’s New
Rev. Proc. 2019-22; 2019-22 C.B. 1260,
available at www.irs.gov/irb/2019-22_IRB,
modified Rev. Proc. 75-50; 1975-2 C.B.
587, available at www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/
rp1975-50.pdf, to provide a third method
for a private school to satisfy the publicity
requirement in section 4.03. In general, an
organization will meet the requirement if
the organization has publicized its racially
nondiscriminatory policy on its primary
publicly accessible Internet homepage at
all times during its taxable year in a manner
reasonably expected to be noticed by
visitors on the homepage. See paragraph
1(c) under “Section 4.03, Publicity” below
for more details.

Purpose of Form
Form 5578 may be used by organizations
that operate tax-exempt private schools to
provide the Internal Revenue Service with
the annual certification of racial
nondiscrimination required by Rev. Proc.
75-50 (the relevant part of which is
reproduced in these instructions). Rev.
Proc. 2019-22 modified Rev. Proc. 75-50 to
provide a third method for a private school
to satisfy the requirement in Section 4.03.

Who Must File
Every organization that claims exemption
from federal income tax under section
501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and
that operates, supervises, or controls a
private school(s) must file a certification of
racial nondiscrimination. If an organization
is required to file Form 990, Return of
Organization Exempt From Income Tax, or
Form 990-EZ, Short Form Return of
Organization Exempt From Income Tax,
either as a separate return or as part of a
group return, the certification must be
made on Schedule E (Form 990 or 990-EZ),
Schools, rather than on this form.
An authorized official of a central
organization may file one form to certify for
the school activities of subordinate
organizations that would otherwise be
required to file on an individual basis, but
only if the central organization has enough
control over the schools listed on the form
to ensure that the schools maintain a racially
nondiscriminatory policy as to students.

Definitions
A racially nondiscriminatory policy as to
students means that the school admits the
students of any race to all the rights,

privileges, programs, and activities
generally accorded or made available to
students at that school and that the school
does not discriminate on the basis of race
in the administration of its educational
policies, admissions policies, scholarship
and loan programs, and athletic and other
school-administered programs.
The IRS considers discrimination on the
basis of race to include discrimination on
the basis of color or national or ethnic origin.
A school is an educational organization
that normally maintains a regular faculty
and curriculum and normally has a
regularly enrolled body of pupils or
students in attendance at the place where
its educational activities are regularly
carried on. The term includes primary,
secondary, preparatory, or high schools
and colleges and universities, whether
operated as a separate legal entity or as
an activity of a church or other
organization described in section 501(c)(3).
The term also includes preschools and any
other organization that is a school as
defined in section 170(b)(1)(A)(ii).
A central organization is an organization
that has one or more subordinates under its
general supervision or control. A subordinate
is a chapter, local, post, or other unit of a
central organization. A central organization
may also be a subordinate, as in the case of
a state organization that has subordinate
units and is itself affiliated with a national
organization.
The group exemption number (GEN) is a
four-digit number issued to a central
organization by the IRS. It identifies a
central organization that has received a
ruling from the IRS recognizing on a group
basis the exemption from federal income
tax of the central organization and its
covered subordinates.

When To File
Under Rev. Proc. 75-50, a certification of
racial nondiscrimination must be filed
annually by the 15th day of the 5th month
after the organization’s accounting period
ends (May 15th for a calendar-year filer). If
the due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday,
or legal holiday, file on the next business
day. A business day is any day that isn’t a
Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday.

Where To File
Mail Form 5578 to:
Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service Center
Ogden, UT 84201-0027

Certification Requirement
Section 4.06 of Rev. Proc. 75-50 requires
an individual authorized to take official
action on behalf of a school that claims to
be racially nondiscriminatory as to
students to certify annually, under
penalties of perjury, that to the best of his
or her knowledge and belief the school has
satisfied the applicable requirements of
sections 4.01 through 4.05 of the Revenue
Procedure, reproduced below:

Rev. Proc. 75-50
Section 4.01, Organizational
Requirements. A school must include a
statement in its charter, bylaws, or other
governing instrument, or in a resolution of
its governing body, that it has a racially
nondiscriminatory policy as to students
and therefore does not discriminate against
applicants and students on the basis of
race, color, and national or ethnic origin.
Section 4.02, Statement of Policy.
Every school must include a statement of
its racially nondiscriminatory policy as to
students in all its brochures and catalogues
dealing with student admissions,
programs, and scholarships. A statement
substantially similar to the Notice
described in paragraph (a) of subsection 1
of section 4.03, infra, will be acceptable for
this purpose. Further, every school must
include a reference to its racially
nondiscriminatory policy in other written
advertising that it uses as a means of
informing prospective students of its
programs. The following references will be
acceptable:
The (name) school admits students of
any race, color, and national or ethnic origin.
Section 4.03, Publicity. The school must
make its racially nondiscriminatory policy
known to all segments of the general
community served by the school.
1. The school must use one of the
following three methods to satisfy this
requirement:
(a) The school may publish a notice of
its racially nondiscriminatory policy in a
newspaper of general circulation that
serves all racial segments of the community.
This publication must be repeated at least
once annually during the period of the
school’s solicitation for students or, in the
absence of a solicitation program, during
the school’s registration period. Where
more than one community is served by a
school, the school may publish its notice in
those newspapers that are reasonably likely
to be read by all racial segments of the
communities that it serves. The notice must
appear in a section of the newspaper likely
to be read by prospective students and
their families and it must occupy at least
three column inches. It must be captioned
in at least 12 point boldface type as a notice
of nondiscriminatory policy as to students,
and its text must be printed in at least 8
point type. The following notice will be
acceptable:

Notice Of Nondiscriminatory
Policy As To Students
The (name) school admits students of any
race, color, national, and ethnic origin to all
the rights, privileges, programs, and
activities generally accorded or made
available to students at the school. It does
not discriminate on the basis of race, color,
national and ethnic origin in administration
of its educational policies, admissions
policies, scholarship and loan programs,
and athletic and other school-administered
programs.

Form 5578 (Rev. 11-2019)

Page

(b) The school may use the broadcast
media to publicize its racially
nondiscriminatory policy if this use makes
such nondiscriminatory policy known to all
segments of the general community the
school serves. If this method is chosen, the
school must provide documentation that
the means by which this policy was
communicated to all segments of the
general community was reasonably
expected to be effective. In this case,
appropriate documentation would include
copies of the tapes or script used and
records showing that there was an
adequate number of announcements, that
they were made during hours when the
announcements were likely to be
communicated to all segments of the
general community, that they were of
sufficient duration to convey the message
clearly, and that they were broadcast on
radio or television stations likely to be
listened to by substantial numbers of
members of all racial segments of the
general community. Announcements must
be made during the period of the school’s
solicitation for students or, in the absence
of a solicitation program, during the
school’s registration period.

be considered effective to make the policy
known to all segments of the community.

(c) The school may display a notice of its
racially nondiscriminatory policy on its
primary publicly accessible Internet
homepage at all times during its taxable
year (excluding temporary outages due to
website maintenance or technical
problems) in a manner reasonably
expected to be noticed by visitors to the
homepage. The notice used to satisfy the
publicity requirement under 1(a), above, is
acceptable. A publicly accessible
homepage is one that does not require a
visitor to input information, such as an
email address or a user name and
password, to access the homepage.
Factors to be considered in determining
whether the notice is reasonably expected
to be noticed by visitors to the homepage
include the size, color, and graphic
treatment of the notice in relation to other
parts of the homepage, whether the notice
is unavoidable, whether other parts of the
homepage distract attention from the
notice, and whether the notice is visible
without a visitor having to do anything
other than simple scrolling on the
homepage. A link on the homepage to
another page where the notice appears, or
a notice that appears in a carousel or only
by selecting a drop down or by hovering
(mouse over) is not acceptable. If a school
does not have its own website, but it has
web pages contained in a website, the
school must display a notice of its racially
nondiscriminatory policy on its primary
landing page within the website in a
manner that satisfies all other requirements
of this subsection 1(c) to use this
publication method.

(b) If a school customarily draws a
substantial percentage of its students
nationwide or world-wide or from a large
geographic section or sections of the
United States and follows a racially
nondiscriminatory policy as to students, the
publicity requirement may be satisfied by
complying with section 4.02, supra. Such a
school may demonstrate that it follows a
racially nondiscriminatory policy within the
meaning of the preceding sentence either
by showing that it currently enrolls students
of racial minority groups in meaningful
numbers or, when minority students are not
enrolled in meaningful numbers, that its
promotional activities and recruiting efforts
in each geographic area were reasonably
designed to inform students of all racial
segments in the general communities within
the area of the availability of the school. The
question whether a school satisfies the
preceding sentence will be determined on
the basis of the facts and circumstances of
each case.

Communication of a racially
nondiscriminatory policy as to students by
a school to leaders of racial groups as the
sole means of publicity generally will not

2. The requirements of subsection 1 of
this section will not apply when one of the
following paragraphs applies:
(a) If for the preceding 3 years the
enrollment of a parochial or other churchrelated school consists of students at least
75% of whom are members of the
sponsoring religious denomination or unit,
the school may make known its racially
nondiscriminatory policy in whatever
newspapers or circulars the religious
denomination or unit utilizes in the
communities from which the students are
drawn. These newspapers and circulars
may be those distributed by a particular
religious denomination or unit or by an
association that represents a number of
religious organizations of the same
denomination. If, however, the school
advertises in newspapers of general
circulation in the community or
communities from which its students are
drawn and paragraphs (b) and (c) of this
subsection are not applicable to it, then it
must comply with paragraph (a) of
subsection 1 of this section.

(c) If a school customarily draws its
students from local communities and follows
a racially nondiscriminatory policy as to
students, the publicity requirement may be
satisfied by complying with section 4.02,
supra. Such a school may demonstrate that it
follows a racially nondiscriminatory policy
within the meaning of the preceding sentence
by showing that it currently enrolls students
of racial minority groups in meaningful
numbers. The question whether a school
satisfies the preceding sentence will be
determined on the basis of the facts and
circumstances of each case. One of the facts
and circumstances that the Service will
consider is whether the school’s promotional
activities and recruiting efforts in each area
were reasonably designed to inform students
of all racial segments in the general
communities within the area of the availability
of the school.

3

The Service recognizes that the failure by
a school drawing its students from local
communities to enroll racial minority group
students may not necessarily indicate the
absence of a racially nondiscriminatory
policy as to students when there are
relatively few or no such students in these
communities. Actual enrollment is,
however, a meaningful indication of a
racially nondiscriminatory policy in a
community in which a public school or
schools became subject to a desegregation
order of a federal court or otherwise
expressly became obligated to implement a
desegregation plan under the terms of any
written contract or other commitment to
which any federal agency was a party.
The Service encourages schools to
satisfy the publicity requirement by the
methods described in subsection 1 of this
section, regardless of whether a school
considers itself within subsection 2,
because it believes these methods to be
the most effective to make known a
school’s racially nondiscriminatory policy.
In this regard it is each school’s
responsibility to determine whether
paragraph (a), (b), or (c) of subsection 2
applies to it. On audit, a school must be
prepared to demonstrate that the failure to
publish its racially nondiscriminatory policy
in accordance with subsection 1 of this
section was justified by the application to it
of paragraph (a), (b), or (c) of subsection 2.
Further, a school must be prepared to
demonstrate that it has publicly disavowed
or repudiated any statements purported to
have been made on its behalf (after
November 6, 1975) that are contrary to its
publicity of a racially nondiscriminatory
policy as to students, to the extent that the
school or its principal official were aware of
such statements.
Section 4.04, Facilities and Programs. A
school must be able to show that all of its
programs and facilities are operated in a
racially nondiscriminatory manner.
Section 4.05, Scholarship and Loan
Programs. As a general rule, all
scholarship or other comparable benefits
procurable for use at any given school
must be offered on a racially
nondiscriminatory basis. Their availability
on this basis must be known throughout
the general community being served by the
school and should be referred to in the
publicity required by this section in order
for that school to be considered racially
nondiscriminatory as to students,
scholarships and loans that are made
pursuant to financial assistance programs
favoring members of one or more racial
minority groups that are designed to
promote a school’s racially
nondiscriminatory policy will not adversely
affect the school’s exempt status. Financial
assistance programs favoring members of
one or more racial groups that do not
significantly derogate from the school’s
racially nondiscriminatory policy similarly
will not adversely affect the school’s
exempt status.

Form 5578 (Rev. 11-2019)

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