We just received some great news from the IRS.

The Daily News is now a tax-exempt public charity.

Which means that if you'd like to give us money (and yes, you do want to give us money!), you can deduct it from your taxes.

It also makes us eligible for a world of foundation funding that was previously off-limits to us.

Lastly, if you've given us money in the past, the exemption is retroactive. So you can go ahead and write that off, too.

Applications for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status take a year or more for the IRS to process, and can involve lots of back-and-forth between tax experts on both sides. We received our ruling in four months, and it sailed right through.

For that, we owe a huge thanks to Jacqueline Farinella and the other folks at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, a blue-chip Chicago law firm that agreed to donate the time to prepare our IRS application, and spent long hours doing so.