From Shannon Vyff in an email on this issue:
Let me explain what I heard from David. The notification of the Venturist status being on hold had been sent to an older address and not forwarded. David is looking into it and should have an answer on Monday. He is saying that it appears to be an error, since we were never notified that the tax status was on hold -and the reasons for it don't apply to our case. The reason was an automatic revocation from not receiving a 990 series form that the Ventursits had not needed to fill out for many years, so it looks like the issue will be resolved soon-within a week he thinks, he will also be writing you himself. The paperwork that said we were on hold, also says it may/or may not effect our tax deduction status--it looks like we just need to get the right paperwork in. The way the wording is, is that if we get the right form in our status is retroactively instated. I'm not sure when this started, but people were able to use donations to William O' Rights Cryonics Charity fund in '08 and '09 as a tax deduction.
Summary: There was confusion about paperwork requirements, and it should be resolved within a week.
Here is what David Pizer said,
"We have just learned that our tax deduction status was automatically and wrongfully suspended by the IRS for not filing a form 990. In the past the IRS confirmed that we don't have to file that form. However it seems recently their equipment automatically suspended us. We are tax exempt, they have made an error and I will contact them on Monday. There is a process where the retroactively remove the organization from their auto-recovation list. That is what we are going to ask them to do although Idon't know how long it will take them to restore us. Meanwhile, I believe that people can continue to make donations and deduct them."
Following the news that Kim Suozzi has terminal brain cancer and wants to be cryopreserved, many of us have donated to help her out, while others, including me, planned to donate when CI set up a fund to receive donations on her behalf. Now the Society for Venturism has set up a fund, and it is time for us to follow through on those plans. (Unless you are really insisting that the fund be managed by CI specifically.)
(ETA: Kim has posted on this herself.)