How to Obtain Political Action Committee (PAC) Status

If you are a political organization and you are interested in increasing revenue, look no further than obtaining Political Action Committee (PAC) status. Obtaining PAC status is not an easy thing to do; let me be very clear in that. Everyone is always hearing and talking about PACs but no one quite seems to know exactly what PACs are.

Political Action Committees are basically non-profit political groups that raise and give money to politicians or for a political cause. Almost every major politician has a PAC specifically designed to take in campaign contributions.

There are two different classifications for PACs: State PAC or a Federal PAC. State PACs are for classifications of organizations that do political activities strictly on a state level and a federal PAC is for organizations that do political activities on a nationwide scale. For example, a U.S. Congressional candidate would set up a federal PAC for obtaining campaign contributions while a small political group would set up a state PAC. Interestingly enough, you can chose to be both a State and Federal PAC.

Before you fill out any paperwork, I strongly recommend that you talk to people from the Federal Elections Committee if you want to set up a Federal PAC or you talk to members of the Democratic or Republican Party for setting up a state PAC. There is a great deal of paperwork that you need to fill out before you can get registered as a PAC. For Federal PACs, you have to send a form to request recognition as a PAC. That form can be found on the FEC website.

In terms of setting up the bank account for your organization, it can get a little complicated. You should go over with your bank all of the necessary fees involved and what exactly you will be charged for in terms of transaction fees and minimum balance fees. For example, the Bank of America requires that you maintain a minimum balance daily of $3,000.