How to Contact the ELCA Regarding a Certification Letter?

To initiate the Group Ruling Exemption process for your congregation or other ELCA entity, please send us an e-mail to 501c3@elca.org Enter the subject line, Tax Exempt Status, and send it. You will receive an automatic reply which states:

Please provide us with your entity name, address, city, state, and the Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) currently used for filing wage statements or quarterly reports with the IRS.

Once we have verified that this information is in the group ruling, we will send the certification letter and attachments by PDF to your e-mail location.  If there is any discrepancy with the information currently in the group ruling, we will e-mail you directly. 

When you have e-mailed your information back to us, we will verify that the information in our ruling is accurate, or not.  If our information agrees, we will forward your certification letter with its attachments electronically.  If our information does not agree, we will e-mail you requesting further documentation.

Please note that new inclusions for social ministry organizations, congregations under development, synodically authorized worshipping communities, and campus ministries need to contact their applicable units at the churchwide organization to start the process.