Re: [gentoo-nfp] [Discussion and vote] Hire CPA for Fiscal 2020 taxes

[Alec Warner]

On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 4:08 AM Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:

> On Mon, 2020-07-20 at 22:55 -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 10:39 PM Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:
> >
> > > Dnia July 21, 2020 5:13:29 AM UTC, Alec Warner <antarus@g.o>
> > > napisał(a):
> > > > On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 9:38 PM Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o>
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Dnia July 21, 2020 4:31:22 AM UTC, Alec Warner <antarus@g.o
> >
> > > > > napisał(a):
> > > > > > I drove.On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 8:10 PM Michał Górny
> > > > > > <mgorny@g.o>
> > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > On Mon, 2020-07-20 at 15:33 -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> > > > > > > > In our previous fiscal year we hired a firm to do our taxes
> for
> > > > > > 2019, as
> > > > > > > > well as a number of previous years. Are there any concerns
> with
> > > > > > > > retaining this firm for the 2020 tax year?
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > 1. Are we talking about 'just' the filings or full-scale
> > > > bookkeeping
> > > > > > > this time?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > This is just the filings for now.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > 2. How hard would it be to do it ourselves, given we have
> previous
> > > > > > > filings by the CPA?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I don't know anyone who could do them properly. I cannot do them
> > > > > > properly
> > > > > > for certain. The tax return last year was 14 pages.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Obviously I could file something; but there are penalties for
> > > > > > making mistakes.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > 3. Could you get some quotes first?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I haven't asked for a price from the CPA yet. Last year we paid
> > > > 1500$
> > > > > > per
> > > > > > tax year (and per 1, this payment was just for taxes.
> > > > >
> > > > > Oh, one more thing I've forgotten to ask. How does this compare
> last
> > > > > years' donations, and what are our prospective donations for this
> > > > year
> > > > > (based on received so far vs 1st half last year)?
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Our fiscal year runs July => June. So the fiscal 2020 year just
> > > > completed.
> > > > We don't have complete financials for fiscal 2020 yet. I looked at
> the
> > > > paypal transactions and donations are slightly up from fiscal 2019.
> We
> > > > should have the financials done later in the year (typically around
> AGM
> > > > time.)
> > >
> > > Are you saying that we haven't been negatively impacted by the
> pandemic?
> > >
> >
> > I'm saying the paypal donations look similar. It's not a complete
> > accounting (sometimes people give us money not through paypal.)
> >
> > If you want a full accounting I recommend waiting for the report at the
> > AGM; this is me just trying to get you an estimated answer quickly. Does
> > that make sense?
> >
>
> Well, you didn't answer me how it compares but I've dug it up anyway.
>

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. To me "this year" is fiscal 2021 (the year we
just began) and last year is fiscal 2020 (the year that just ended in June)
We have no published numbers for fiscal 2020 (the books are not complete)
so I provided an estimate for fiscal 2020 and I said it looked similar to
fiscal 2019 for paypal donations. So when you said "how does it compare to
last years donations" I felt like my answer was well intentioned. But now I
see you wrote "years'" and maybe you meant multiple "like how does it
compare to the last five years" which makes your reply below make more
sense ;)


>
> So if I read the financial reports right, cash donations in the last
> years were around (I'm ignoring the fees, GSoC income, etc.):
>
> FY2016: $12.5k
> FY2017: $11.5k
> FY2018: $23k
>

The Fiscal 2019 numbers are at
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Gentoo_Foundation_Finances_FY2019


>
> So FY2019 should be similar.
>

FY2019: $16404, but remember this is July 2018 - June 2019

As I said before, I don't have the FY2020 numbers. I expect them to be
north of $10,000 and they cover July 2019 - June 2020.


> If the price remained at $1.5k a year, this would be around 7% of cash
> donations.  Isn't this a bit much?


NetBSD spends about 3-5k a year on legal and operational expenses according
to their filings. If we hired this accountant for Tax and Bookkeeping our
expenses would be somewhere around 4k a year. So this seems in the right
ballpark of costs for these tasks. I agree 7% is high. However because we
are spending about the same as the peer organizations I have looked at, I'm
not confident we can effectively reduce these costs very much without
impacting the work product. There are penalties and fines for doing the
taxes wrong so i'm less eager to hire a very cheap CPA to do them.

-A


>




> --
> Best regards,
> Michał Górny
>
>