Legal status worksheet
Every legal fact needs the source that carries it.
The fields below are the institution's legal identity, each next to the source that establishes it. Three sources carry them and they are not interchangeable: the institution's own determination letter, a state registration record, and this site's own identity data. Where a field is carried by none of them, it is not published here.
Legal identity
The fields, the basis, and the limit that basis carries.
The limit travels in its own column so a reader cannot take the value without it.
| Field | Value | Basis | Status | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legal name | INSTAR Lab Inc. | Site identity source; consistent with the served IRS determination letter and the Ohio Attorney General record. | Verified in repository | The site identity source is repository data. It establishes what the site publishes, not what a registry holds. |
| IRS employer identification number | 85-0845517 | Served IRS determination letter; the Nonprofit Explorer entry is keyed to the same number. | Verified in repository | An EIN identifies an entity to the IRS. It is not a registration, a certification, or evidence of standing in any program. |
| Exemption | Exempt under IRC §501(c)(3) | Served IRS determination letter. | Verified in repository | The letter is the institution’s own document. It is not a current-status check; exemption can be revoked, and this register does not re-check it against the IRS on every build. |
| Public charity classification | Public charity under IRC §170(b)(1)(A)(vi) | Served IRS determination letter. This classification was misstated on this site until 16 June 2026 — see the corrections register, COR-004. | Verified in repository | The classification is what makes contributions deductible. §170(b)(1)(A)(vi) is the basis the letter states; no other subsection is claimed here. |
| Ruling effective date | 27 April 2020 | Served IRS determination letter. | Verified in repository | An effective date is the start of the exemption, not the date of incorporation and not a filing date. |
| State of registration | Ohio | Ohio Attorney General charitable-registration record. | External record | This is a state charitable-solicitation registration, not the state of incorporation, and not an IRS registration. |
| Ohio Attorney General registration ID | 12174620 | Ohio Attorney General charitable-registration record. | External record | The registration must be renewed. The identifier is stable; the status behind it is not, and the record page is the authority on it. |
| Principal address | 125 Frederick St, Marietta, OH 45750-3407 | Site identity source; consistent with the served IRS determination letter. | Verified in repository | This is the address the institution publishes. This register does not publish a mailing address, a post-office box, or a registered-agent address, because no source here establishes one. |
| Published contact details | info@instarlab.org · 929-229-2917 | Site identity source (SRC-001), which the shared shell emits as organization structured data on every route as well as rendering it in the site header. | Site published | This row publishes the contact details the site already carries; it does not add a contact channel, and it is not the records-request route, which is carried separately above. The email address has no second source at all, in either direction. |
Freshness check
Three sources, three different strengths.
The register does not blend them. A state filing and the institution’s own letter are both real evidence, and they are not evidence of the same things.
Read the source status definitionsSource scope
What each source can carry, and what it cannot.
Source scope by legal field
A compact view of the same three sources, stated as their reach rather than as a ranking.
| Area | Can carry | Cannot carry |
|---|---|---|
| Served IRS determination letter | EIN, §501(c)(3) exemption, §170(b)(1)(A)(vi) classification, ruling effective date, address | Current status, any Form 990, or anything after the ruling |
| Ohio Attorney General registration record | State of registration and registration ID 12174620 | Anything about federal exemption or federal filings |
| Site identity source | The legal name, public name and address this site publishes | That any registry agrees with them |
Determination letter
The institution’s own document, served where anyone can read it.
The IRS determination letter (EIN 85-0845517) is served from this site at a stable URL. Reading it confirms:
- The employer identification number 85-0845517.
- Exemption under IRC §501(c)(3).
- Classification as a public charity under IRC §170(b)(1)(A)(vi) rather than as a private foundation.
- A ruling effective 27 April 2020.
- The Marietta, Ohio address published in the site identity source.
It is a scanned document, so the fields above are read from the served artifact rather than parsed from it. It establishes the classification as of the ruling; it is not a current-status check, and it is not a Form 990 of any year.
IRS determination letter (EIN 85-0845517)
Kind: PDF. Register status: Verified in repository
Records request
IRC §6104(d)
A tax-exempt organization must provide its exemption application and its annual returns to any person who requests them in writing, without requiring a reason and without charging more than a reasonable reproduction and mailing cost. This is an obligation on the organization, not a favour it grants.
Write to the institution at the principal address below. Say which documents you want and where they should be sent; the statute does not require a form, a reason, or any particular wording.
INSTAR Lab Inc.125 Frederick StMarietta, OH 45750-3407The statute governs what the institution must provide and how long it has to respond. This page states the obligation and the route; it is not legal advice, and it is not a commitment about any individual request.
Available on written request
- The exemption application and the IRS determination letter for the §501(c)(3) exemption — the determination letter is already served on this site.
- Annual returns and notices for the years the institution is required to file them, including the Form 990-N (e-Postcard) for years in which that is the applicable filing.
Not available, and why
- Documents that do not exist cannot be produced. Where a filing year has no returned document, the institution’s reply should say so rather than substitute an explanation.
- This register names no email address, telephone number or post-office box for records requests, because no source it cites establishes one for that purpose. Contact details the site publishes elsewhere are general contact routes; this register does not present them as a records-request channel.
Filing record
What the bulk filing data shows, and what it does not.
This register publishes this row attributively: it states what a third-party dataset contains, and it refuses to convert that into a statement about the institution’s conduct.
Dataset checked
IRS Form 990-N (e-Postcard) filing data
Internal Revenue Service · opened 2026-09-14
Single observation
Filing record as a timeline
One observed filing year, plotted as a single pin. The gap beside it stays visibly open: absence from the dataset is not a finding about any other year.
Tax year 2025 filing observed in the bulk dataset
FIL-001
Within the filing data the institution checked, exactly one INSTAR Lab filing appears: tax year 2025. No earlier INSTAR Lab filing appears in that data.
The gap between one listed filing and the institution’s years of operation is unresolved, and this register records it as unresolved rather than explaining it away. Closing it needs a source this register does not have — the institution’s own filing acknowledgements, or a response from the IRS — and until one of those is produced, the honest state of this row is that it is open.
| Question | What this register can say |
|---|---|
| What the dataset shows | Within the filing data the institution checked, exactly one INSTAR Lab filing appears: tax year 2025. No earlier INSTAR Lab filing appears in that data. |
| What that does not establish | An absent row in a bulk file is not the same claim as a filing that was never made, and this register cannot tell the two apart from outside the IRS. The publisher describes this dataset as the most recent e-Postcard filings on record and does not state a coverage start year for it on the page it serves, so the register does not state one either. Digitized filing data for small filers is re-cut on the publisher’s schedule and has historically been unevenly complete. Nothing on this page asserts that INSTAR Lab failed to file in any year, and nothing on it asserts that INSTAR Lab filed in any year other than the one disclosed above. |
| Automatic revocation | The institution reports that INSTAR Lab does not appear on the IRS automatic-revocation list. That is the institution’s check, not this register’s: the list is served through a search tool rather than a stable document URL, so the register cannot re-run the check on every build and does not pretend to.Automatic revocation follows three consecutive years without a required filing, and it is effective on the original due date of the third return or notice. The rule and the list are described on the IRS page linked below.IRS automatic revocation of exemption |
| Unresolved | The gap between one listed filing and the institution’s years of operation is unresolved, and this register records it as unresolved rather than explaining it away. Closing it needs a source this register does not have — the institution’s own filing acknowledgements, or a response from the IRS — and until one of those is produced, the honest state of this row is that it is open. |
| Limit on all of it | A bulk filing dataset is published by a third party on its own schedule. It is evidence of what is in the file, and of nothing beyond the file. |
Read the row, not the blank.
A filing that is missing from a dataset and a filing that was never made are different claims, and this register cannot tell them apart from outside the IRS. The gap is recorded above as open. It is not recorded as a finding, and it is not recorded as an explanation.
Where the institution’s figures and filings are published by a government record rather than by the institution, this room points at that record instead of restating it: see the external sources in the source register.