1 |
On Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 01:46:26PM -0500, james wrote: |
2 |
> Why thank you James for helping us focus on charity and organizational |
3 |
> commitment. Here is an IRS online document, that is just exciting to |
4 |
> read, when one puts on the filter of gentoo_behavior and reads the |
5 |
> requirements to be a 501(c)3 [1] |
6 |
> |
7 |
> [1] > https://www.irs.gov/publications/p557/ch03.html#en_US_201602_publink1000200036 |
8 |
> |
9 |
> So which category is Gentoo under? |
10 |
The Gentoo Foundation is probably 501(c)(6) business league, with |
11 |
self-declared exemption status. |
12 |
https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/business-leagues |
13 |
|
14 |
I use probably, because of the lack of documentation from prior |
15 |
trustees, and the unwillingness of the IRS to provide any confirmations |
16 |
to date. |
17 |
|
18 |
There is a category for some 501(c) organizations: self-declared |
19 |
exemption. |
20 |
|
21 |
See |
22 |
https://www.irs.gov/PUP/charities/charitable/How%20to%20Apply%20QAs%20Part%201.pdf |
23 |
Page 15, question 66: |
24 |
| 66) Please explain the concept of self-declaring. |
25 |
| However, many other kinds of tax-exempt organizations, such as those |
26 |
| that wish to be exempt under section 501(c)(4), 501(c)(6), 501(c)(8), |
27 |
| and 501(c)(10), are not required to apply to the IRS to be tax-exempt. |
28 |
| Instead, they must simply comply with the rules for organizations |
29 |
| operating under that subsection and meet their annual filing requirement |
30 |
| (by filing Form 990, 990-EZ, or 990-N). These organizations are known as |
31 |
| self-declarers. They will not have a formal determination letter from |
32 |
| the IRS recognizing them as tax-exempt, but they are not legally |
33 |
| required to have such a letter. Some organizations that that are |
34 |
| eligible to self-declare may still choose to apply for recognition of |
35 |
| tax-exempt status and receive a determination letter from the IRS. |
36 |
|
37 |
See further below, regarding what papers we do and don't have. |
38 |
|
39 |
> Where are the public records? |
40 |
As the present treasurer, I have the following physical items regarding |
41 |
the foundation: |
42 |
- trademark registrations & legal proceedings thereof. |
43 |
- some bank statements |
44 |
- old chequebooks (the registers not consistently filled in) |
45 |
|
46 |
This was ALL that was provided to me by the prior treasurer, and I've |
47 |
been hunting for any further documentation, to no avail so far. |
48 |
|
49 |
Separately, we've been working to try and get the IRS to give us copies |
50 |
of anything that was filed by previous trustees. |
51 |
|
52 |
The last treasurer said that his accountant filed tax papers for the |
53 |
Foundation, but the treasurer did not provide any documentation or |
54 |
copies of those tax papers, nor has he informed us who said accountant |
55 |
was. He ignores my emails & phone calls now. The items listed above were |
56 |
only provided to us after we sent registered mail. |
57 |
|
58 |
I constructed the entire Ledger, including historical data back to the |
59 |
start of the Foundation, when I took on the role of bookkeeping in early |
60 |
2015. No prior ledgers or accounting summaries were provided to me, and |
61 |
this also gave an opportunity to review the prior financial reports from |
62 |
other treasurers: minor errors were found, mostly around reversals & |
63 |
correct recording dates for transactions that spanned financial years. |
64 |
For our banking at Paypal & CapitalOne, I am certain that no financial |
65 |
irregularities took place, but would welcome some more invoices for some |
66 |
of the expenditures marked under GSOC reimbursements. |
67 |
The earlier bank account at NetBank had almost no records available at |
68 |
all, so it's possible there may have been unknown deposits & |
69 |
withdrawals. I could only construct those transactions via finding |
70 |
records of the other side (transfers to/from paypal, bugs, mailing list |
71 |
posts). |
72 |
|
73 |
- We DO have an EIN (early email from Daniel Robbins that cites it) |
74 |
- We don't have the actual hard-copy issuance of it. |
75 |
- I can find no evidence that an exemption request Form 1024 was filed |
76 |
by the prior trustees. |
77 |
https://www.irs.gov/publications/p557/ch04.html#en_US_201602_publink1000200309 |
78 |
- I can find no evidence that prior trustees filed any federal annual |
79 |
reports, or tax forms (990 series). |
80 |
|
81 |
Why were the 990 forms not previously filed? |
82 |
- Because the revenue was too low? |
83 |
- Because the treasurer didn't do it? |
84 |
- Some other reason? |
85 |
|
86 |
> Can we get complete historical ledger of the organization published? |
87 |
There's one major blocker to the historical ledger, and some minor |
88 |
ongoing pieces. |
89 |
1. |
90 |
I've been asking for some tooling to anonymize the personal information |
91 |
contained in the ledger. |
92 |
- names & paypal-linked emails of paypal contributors |
93 |
- we did not get their permission to publish their names, so they need |
94 |
to be made anonymous in some way. |
95 |
- Paypal-linked emails of reimbursed parties. |
96 |
- eg paypal accounts linked to dedicated or personal emails. |
97 |
- the name here is NOT made private, because it's linked in bugs in |
98 |
almost all cases. |
99 |
- Authorization tokens in paypal messages. |
100 |
- Consistently hash paypal transaction IDs. |
101 |
- Needs to be consistent so you can see related transactions & |
102 |
reversals. |
103 |
|
104 |
2. |
105 |
The ongoing pieces. |
106 |
- I've been trying to track down values for all non-monetary donations, |
107 |
so that they have suitable deprecation applied. |
108 |
- Figuring the CORRECT handling of deprecation (esp for non-monetary). |
109 |
- It looks like flat/linear depreciation is fine. |
110 |
- What date to put the deprecation expenses on: |
111 |
- end of financial year? |
112 |
- every calendar year or month from the acquisition of the asset? |
113 |
- Example case is our purchase of new VM hosting servers just before |
114 |
the close of Q4 FY2016. This single purchase accounted for more than |
115 |
75% of all expenses in FY2016. (~$10k of ~$12.8k) |
116 |
|
117 |
> Are we (gentoo, council and foundation) in compliance? |
118 |
- Foundation: that depends a lot on what prior treasurers did. |
119 |
- Council: What compliance requirements do you think exist for the Council? |
120 |
|
121 |
> Audit Records? |
122 |
We have never been audited by any external parties. My new Ledger does |
123 |
form a means of auditing the earlier financial reports |
124 |
|
125 |
> Let's get cracking on which FOSS package we want to use, as a |
126 |
> community decision. I suggest preparation and a public vote. |
127 |
We're ALREADY using Ledger. The complete Ledgers are about ~3k records, |
128 |
with the SFC's NPOAcct [1] tagging format data [2] on them. |
129 |
|
130 |
The GNUCash folk note that a 1:1 transform is possible, so if those |
131 |
scripts are available, and usable bi-directional, that would help |
132 |
anybody wanting to contribute via GNUCash (perhaps it has better |
133 |
anonymization functions?). |
134 |
|
135 |
[1] https://k.sfconservancy.org/npo-ledger-cli |
136 |
[2] https://k.sfconservancy.org/npo-ledger-cli/files/438e0688929da670bdc37c99baf213f55ef0f8b0/npo-ledger-cli-tutorial.md |
137 |
|
138 |
-- |
139 |
Robin Hugh Johnson |
140 |
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Trustee & Treasurer |
141 |
E-Mail : robbat2@g.o |
142 |
GnuPG FP : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85 |
143 |
GnuPG FP : 7D0B3CEB E9B85B1F 825BCECF EE05E6F6 A48F6136 |