AMA Section Council Requests Names of House of Delegate Attendees

fficials from the Society’s Section Council on Anesthesiology of the American Medical Association (AMA) would like to know the names of ASA members planning to attend the AMA’s House of Delegates on December 4-7, 2004, in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Section Council is open to all anesthesiologists who attend the AMA House of Delegates meeting as representatives from their state, county or local medical associations. The Section Council meets to discuss resolutions and other issues of importance to anesthesiologists. Meetings usually take place on Saturday and Monday of the meeting. If you are attending the House of Delegates meeting, the Society would welcome your participation.

To be placed on the mailing list to receive information on the Society’s AMA Section Council meetings, please send your name, address, telephone number, fax number and reason for attendance to Denise M. Jones at the ASA Executive Office, 520 N. Northwest Highway, Park Ridge, IL 60068-2573; or fax (847) 825-1692.

2005 Membership Dues Announced

The ASA membership dues for 2005 will be as follows:

Active $450

Affiliate $225

Resident $25

Educational $225

Educational (student) $25

Medical Student $10

This information is being provided for those who wish to renew their membership in December. The 2005 dues statements will be mailed to the membership in December 2004, although members may renew their dues online through the “Members Only” section of the ASA Web site <www.ASAhq.org>.

Dues payments are deductible by members as an ordinary and necessary business expense; in the case of membership dues paid to a section 501(c)(6) organization such as ASA, this means the “business expense” deduction will be denied to the extent that membership dues are spent by the organization on lobbying.

At the time of the distribution of the dues statements for the coming year, ASA is required (in order to avoid paying a proxy tax) to provide members with an estimate of what the nondeductible lobbying percentage will be for that year. For 2005 the percentage of dues related to lobbying is 7 percent. Therefore 7 percent of dues paid to ASA in 2005 will be disallowed as a deduction. This percentage also will be included on your 2005 dues statement.

Anesthesiology groups paying association membership dues on behalf of an employee (e.g., resident, anesthesiologist assistant) should bear in mind that they must include in the employee’s taxable income on Form W-2 that portion of the association’s dues that the association reports to the Internal Revenue Service as attributable to lobbying expenses.