Gentoo Archives: gentoo-nfp

From: Matthew Summers <quantumsummers@g.o>
To: "William L. Thomson Jr." <wlt@××××××××××××××××.com>
Cc: gentoo-nfp@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-nfp] Tax return and accounting discrepancies
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:40:49
Message-Id: AANLkTi=t-LmHqWtZeLZEUYQBDB2oZ=panryn+fGHKK8q@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-nfp] Tax return and accounting discrepancies by "William L. Thomson Jr."
1 In the interest of full disclosure I make the following points.
2
3 1. I am a business owner.
4 2. I work regularly with a CPA firm
5 3. I work regularly with attorneys specializing in contract law, tax
6 law, and IP law, but I am not an attorney.
7 4. I joined the Gentoo Foundation as an officer at the time of the
8 crisis (09/2008) to assist in the recovery of the Foundation.
9 5. The Gentoo Foundation has been and is in good standing with NM,
10 having filed all necessary documents on time since I joined.
11 6. I live in the US.
12 7. The Gentoo Foundation has been completely transparent regarding
13 finances since the recovery.
14
15
16 William,
17
18 I appreciate your perspective regarding the Gentoo Foundation.
19 Unfortunately, the main reason the Foundation has not achieved proper
20 status with the IRS is directly due to the irresponsibility and/or
21 negligence of the former (pre-2008) board of trustees. I do not say
22 this to be mean-spirited, please note. This irresponsibility is
23 manifest in the fact that correct status with the IRS was not filed
24 within 27 months of the start of the organization, which would be
25 sometime in 2004. It is that simple. This has in fact been a huge
26 obstacle to the development of the Foundation as a non-profit entity.
27 I was not involved with Gentoo, except as a user, during that time.
28 Now, you have made and continue to make many claims in your various
29 statements regarding the Foundation, some are quite novel while others
30 are rather unhelpful. Its completely true that the Foundation is not
31 what it could be. I perhaps recognize this more than others given that
32 I work closely with non-profits on a daily basis and know what the
33 world holds in store for a fully operational 501(c)(3) Gentoo
34 Foundation. I understand your frustrations regarding action and/or
35 inaction within the board, but you must realize that the Foundation is
36 not a dictatorship. We, the board I mean, are working together towards
37 the common goals of Gentoo, while taking on a rather large legal
38 responsibility. You make many valid points regarding the need for
39 financial professionals, etc, and I can assure you that I have used my
40 CPA for many things Gentoo, paid for out of my own pocket. I am happy
41 to do that for now, since paying an actual CPA to handle an
42 organization like the Gentoo Foundation can cost in excess of $1200
43 per month. I think you may agree that the Foundation cannot afford
44 this. The values you quote for income are skewed since Google paid us
45 for previous years GSoC. The actual income of the Foundation on a
46 yearly basis averages less than $12,000. Further, I have used my
47 attorneys for various bits and the Foundation has been assisted by the
48 SFLC on various issues.
49
50 As I see a few more emails from you coming down the line, I will
51 address those now. You are stirring the pot, sir. Please refrain from
52 this as it does no good. You are attempting to scare people by your
53 statements and I will not stand for it. Its quite clear that you are
54 misinformed regarding the status of the Gentoo Foundation with the
55 IRS. We, due to what I mention above, never received non-profit or
56 tax-exempt status. In fact, that has been very difficult, and it's
57 something we have been working on for many months now.
58
59 The Foundation is in no real danger. Yes, we will likely have some tax
60 penalties to deal with, however the Foundation's income has been well
61 below federal minimums, so those penalties will be low. This is
62 especially true if we are able to make a convincing case regarding why
63 the Foundation did not observe the 27 month guideline in our 1023
64 application.
65
66 All of this is actually being dealt with by competent individuals,
67 despite what you may believe. What was left by the old trustees was a
68 mess that will take awhile longer to sort out, but have no fear we
69 will sort it out.
70
71 Lastly, I am preparing a proposal for review by the other board
72 members that will address much of what you are taking issue with, as I
73 believe at this point its time to bring in some funded professional
74 assistance. I would highly encourage you to review the logs of our
75 past meetings as I think you will see that we are addressing most if
76 not all of your concerns.
77
78 Thank you very much for your interest in the Gentoo Foundation and its
79 continued health.
80
81 Kind Regards,
82 Matthew Summers
83 --
84 Matthew W. Summers

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-nfp] Tax return and accounting discrepancies Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@g.o>
Re: [gentoo-nfp] Tax return and accounting discrepancies "William L. Thomson Jr." <wlt@××××××××××××××××.com>