I know a lot of small businesses that can and do claim no profit.
I know of a past family business that had several years that showed being in the red before actually making a profit.
Showing little to no profit does not mean you can claim to be exempt due to non profit status.
Non profit status is a much different thing with much different requirements then just being able to show your business did not generate a profit when balancing all the books in regards to expenses and write offs.
And I would guess there are a lot of those that claim to be nonprofits that way over the line on many of the restrictions, doing much digging on many of them probably will put their status in jeopardy if the decide to push it.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/types-nonprofits/