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On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 3:06 PM, William L. Thomson Jr. |
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<wlt@××××××××××××××××.com> wrote: |
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> I am still quite concerned and would like to know a reason why the |
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> Gentoo Foundation has not filed a state of federal tax return. I am not |
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> sure when the last time the Gentoo Foundation did file any returns, or |
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> provided required annual accounting information to New Mexico. |
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> |
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|
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Is there a clear statement somewhere of the actual legal requirements? |
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I'd recommend just having a simple webpage that lists each |
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requirement, and how it was met for auditing purposes - keep fluff to |
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a minimum. |
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|
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Is there any controversy over the requirements, or is there a |
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consensus that we have a problem here? |
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|
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> An almost $9k discrepancy where account balance has been off, |
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> unacceptable! That is really not good! Where did that money go? Did it |
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> exist in the first place? Does anybody have a clue? |
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|
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Certainly interested in an answer to this. The way I read it was that |
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sometime in the past there was a problem and the correction just makes |
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the register reflect reality. That might not be something we can fix. |
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|
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> Now here we are about 2.5yrs later, and still no tax return, and very |
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> shady accounting. It might be acceptable to others, but it surely is not |
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> to me. I hope Gentoo starts to keep an eye out if people have any |
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> qualifications for the roles and positions they fill. Given the amount |
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> of neglect, and lack of leadership all around. |
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> |
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|
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Any suggestions as to solution? Hiring a CPA as a part-time treasurer |
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might be a solution - if we can afford it. |
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|
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Not having time to submit a report is one problem. Issuing checks and |
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not recording it in the register is a different problem. The latter |
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is something we really can't accept. I'm not sure that is the actual |
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problem here. |
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|
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The lack of reporting probably stems from one of a few possible causes: |
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1. There is not agreement the work needs to be done (perhaps rightly |
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or wrongly). |
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2. There is not a clear and agreed-upon owner for the task. |
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3. The owner has not carried out the task (which itself can have a |
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few root causes). |
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|
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One thing we should strongly consider is that if we don't have time to |
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legally document an action, then we probably shouldn't perform the |
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action. If accepting a check involves 18 hours of paperwork, then we |
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might consider whether the check ought to be accepted at all. Also, |
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where possible we should do the paperwork first (update the total on |
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the reports, then accept the check). Kind of like stable the |
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dependencies before you stable the package. A report is easy at the |
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start of the reporting period - copy balance forward from last period, |
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activities are all zero, end balance is equal to start. |
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|
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Might not hurt to use something like Google docs with backups to facilitate/etc. |
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|
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Rich |