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On 7/3/19 2:27 PM, Rich Freeman wrote: |
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> On Wed, Jul 3, 2019 at 7:27 AM Kristian Fiskerstrand <k_f@g.o> wrote: |
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>> |
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>> On 7/3/19 12:47 PM, Rich Freeman wrote: |
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>>> You also need to consider the tax savings themselves if the umbrella |
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>>> is 501c3. That is also a percentage of the net (the CPA costs being |
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>>> deductible most likely). |
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>> |
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>> It depends on the type of income, iirc e.g GSoC wouldn't be tax exempt |
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>> in either case. Same for royalties from sale of merchandise |
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> |
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> Certainly some forms of income aren't tax-exempt, and we should |
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> definitely get a professional opinion on this. However, have you seen |
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> anything to suggest GSoC specifically is taxable? |
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> |
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[...] |
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Not really. Arguably Gentoo is in the business of producing code, to |
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receive monetary considerations for doing so is a related activity and |
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not a spurious one, we also have (or have had) mentor projects etc that |
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could be used to argue this case. I don't know, but if it is, it is a |
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more significant taxable income than most other we have which is why I |
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listed it first; the CPA/IRS which specialize in this under US tax law |
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will figure it out for us. But I agree that the merchandise is a cleaner |
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example, although not as regular and somewhat declining. |
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> It is probably a good idea to consider that some income will be |
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> taxable. Of course, it is still only net profits that are taxable |
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, so |
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> any GSoC money spent on GSoC itself wouldn't be net-taxable even if |
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> the overall income would be (at least, that is my understanding). |
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Right, although there aren't that many expenditures related to GSoC. |
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> |
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> And of course if we were using an umbrella org the org itself would |
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> have its compliance staff make these determinations and have rules |
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> around this stuff. We wouldn't need to develop our own expertise and |
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> chances are their staff could also make recommendations on how to |
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> structure activities to minimize tax burden. If they're charging |
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> based on net income then it would be in their interests to minimize |
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> our taxes anyway. |
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CPA would help us out in the case of foundation, iirc some tax forms |
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needs to be filled out related to payment from google as well, but I |
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haven't read these forms, they might shine some light on the |
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interpretations :) |
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>> |
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>> Also needs to account for potentially higher future earnings, we haven't |
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>> actually been doing active fundraising. |
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> |
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> I have mixed feelings on this. Numbers-wise you're right - if some |
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> professional umbrella org gets a shared of anything donated to |
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> "Gentoo" they're going to be out there advocating for people to donate |
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> to "Gentoo." As a result "Gentoo" will probably end up with a lot |
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> more money. On the surface this seems like a good thing. On the |
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> other hand, I do get concerned about what effect this could have on |
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> the community and atmosphere of the project. |
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> |
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> This is part of why I advocate for trying to reduce our dependency on |
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> money and servers and so on. These things all potentially come with |
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> strings attached, and I'd prefer to be more dependent on the goodwill |
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> of our code contributors than the goodwill of our |
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Its an interesting point, but I personally don't agree, the discussion |
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is really too broad to take atm :) |
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-- |
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Kristian Fiskerstrand |
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OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net |
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