Registering MacPorts as Not for Profit Organization

[Jackson Isaac]

Hi all,

Moving the discussion regarding registering MacPorts as an
organization to set up bank account for receiving donations, GSoC
stipends (mentor and travel stipends to be precise), etc..

The following two ways were discussed:
1. Register our own organization in a country where cost is minimal
(for e.g., France as discussed by Mojca in the attached mail). Or in
US or Germany (with strict rules, higher yearly costs, legal stuff,
etc.).
2. Registering as a sub-organization under a bigger organization and
using their account?.

Please feel free to add your suggestions/opinions and views. Also
which would be a fast and efficient way so that we can also complete
the process before completion of GSoC in order to accept this year's
mentor and travel stipends.

On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 1:38 PM, Mojca Miklavec <mojca at macports.org> wrote:
>
> On 18 May 2017 at 20:21, Jackson Isaac wrote:
> >
> > Should we create a separate thread for discussing not-for profit
> > organization registration to find out best and efficient way we could
> > do so ?
>
> Yes, we may do so, but I would do it publicly (on the -dev list?).
>
> Just as one data point. We founded ConTeXt Group in 2011 according to
> the French law from 1901 or so. Someone needs to write the bylaws and
> send them + the list of board members to the French officials, but
> none of that costs anything. *All* our expenses boil down to less than
> 100 EUR per year for the bank account (monthly fee of 6 EUR + 10 EUR
> per year for online banking). We don't have a tax number (which means
> that most of the time I cannot even request an invoice on the name of
> the group without a VAT number, so I usually collect just regular
> invoices), we don't need to send any financial report to the
> government and we don't pay any taxes. All we need is a volunteer
> treasurer sending invoices for membership fee (not sure if that would
> be relevant for MP), paying invoices for journal printing & expenses
> related to years member meetings, and making financial reports for
> internal use only, ... Plus a president and secretary taking care of
> everything else. But we don't have any professional accountant or
> anything. We do need a local French person to occasionally talk to the
> officials or to go to the bank (once every few years) though.
>
> For MP it might make more sense to open one in Germany or USA, but
> either of those will probably require following much stricter rules.
> We tried to open a bank account for that (at that time already
> existing) French organisation in Germany and Slovenia, but any of
> those would require the president and treasurer to come to the bank
> personally, to get a local VAT number and submit financial reports
> also to the Slovenian government for example, plus following some
> weird anti-money-laundering procedures or whatever.
>

-- 
Jackson Isaac