Eve Borenstein

Eve is a prolific speaker and legal advisor who has exclusively served the tax-exempt organization (TEO) sector since 1989. Throughout her career, her sole practice arena has been the unique federal tax and state laws (and other governmental agencies’ regulations) that apply to TEOs specifically or to non-profit organizations overall. Through early 2019 Eve operated her own law firm, and then became Of Counsel at Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, LLP, a Washington DC boutique firm serving TEOs as well as political organizations (at low rates in keeping with the firm's start as a public interest law-firm). Eve semi-retired in 2025 and no longer performs direct-client representation but still assists Harmon Curran's attorneys. She also has operated, since 1990, a teaching and speaking consultancy, now housed under Eve Rose Borenstein, LLC (www.taxexemptlaw.org). From this venue she continues to serve CPAs, attorneys and nonprofits in promoting both TEO compliance and accompanying appropriate practices.

Eve has long been recognized for her extensive experience in serving TEOs, and their advisors, throughout the country. For 40+ years (counting her post-law school stint for 2-½ years at a Big 8 CPA firm’s Tax Department where she was told she was the first hire who ever asked to work on Forms 990!), she has assisted organizations of all types on all matters of federal tax law compliance – everything from IRS field audit examinations, private letter ruling requests, and exemption applications to penalty abatements, technical guidance requests, myriad IRC sec. 501(c) sub-classification determinations, and various correspondence needs. Throughout her career she has been the chief representative of ~1,100 TEOs before the IRS. 

Eve believes that TEOs, a highly regulated industry, is best served when organizations understand the rules they are subject to. To such end, she has tirelessly worked to expand TEOs’ access to quality legal and accounting assistance. As a longstanding member of the American Bar Association’s Tax Section Committee on Exempt Organizations, and via the TEGE Exempt Organizations Council (and other professional association committees, including those of the AICPA), Eve has expended thousands of hours on efforts to  expand TEOs' access to both quality information and pro bono assistance. She has also fought to improve practitioners’ liaison mechanisms with the IRS, including successfully bringing the nonprofit advisors’ community into colloquy with the leadership of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division via the TEGE Exempt Organizations Council’s public forums and other efforts. 

Eve’s teaching/speaking, including CPE course development and instruction of her own exempt organization tax law seminars, began in 1990 when the Form 990 had just been expanded to five pages. Her then-15 years of teaching on that Form’s preparation led to her being extensively involved in numerous comment projects on the IRS’s “Redesign” of the Form 990. Eve continues to be nationally known for her Form 990 trainings (she was introduced as the “Queen of the 990” when testifying before a US House of Representatives Committee in 2012!), as well as for her plain English explanation of tax-exemption qualification and various other mandates that apply to TEOs.