[Noisebridge-discuss] Electron Microscope

Sai Emrys noisebridge at saizai.com
Fri May 28 23:41:34 UTC 2010


On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Ian Atha <thatha at thatha.org> wrote:
> Christie, please remember that unless you are a registered CPA it is
> against the law to offer tax advice.

Citation please? I don't recall CPA being protected in the same way as
practicing law is.


FWIW, IANACPA but I have read the relevant tax codes and the Nolo
nonprofit book, and I'm pretty sure that Christie's morally right (in
the math, not ethics sense of 'morally').

I think it's fine to *sell* it to HackerDojo for fair market value,
but donation would be gray-zone at best. IIRC to not raise flags you
have to show that the donation to a for-profit entity is specifically
in line with the nonprofit mission, they weren't given special
consideration, there's no conflict of interest, etc etc... basically
it's more of a PITA/risk than it's worth.

Analogy: you can make a nonprofit to give money to poor people
generically, but not to give money to Joe Hacker specifically. Giving
things of value to for-profit entities (individual or corporate) is
not a priori improper. It's just heavily scrutinized.

See also: http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=123202,00.html
(re non-cash donation reporting requirements)

If you really really care (I don't), you can get a determination
directly from the IRS:
http://www.irs.gov/irb/2010-01_IRB/ar09.html#d0e9018

I sympathize with wanting to get Official Answers™, and to avoid
liability from incorrect info, but it seems unhackerly to crack down
on unofficial-but-informed ones. :-/


tl;dr: You can sell it to them for current market value. It's not
worth the hassle to donate it.

Larry: who at HackerDojo is actually interested in playing with it?
More than 5? Could they, e.g. come to NB to work/play on it (thus
getting a real answer to "who cares", and hopefully instilling some
cooperative improvement in the process) and revisit the question of
ownership/storage location afterwards?


FWIW, it's not legal IMO (IANAL) for NB to have a "policy" for what in
the space is a donation or not (that's theft; think if e.g. a bar had
a "policy" that jackets that are left behind are considered donations
to Goodwill). Only the donor gets to decide that, unless it's really
abandoned property. But is that really worth yet another argument? We
had this out a couple months ago.

I guess I really should draw up & print those 'CC for stuff' stickers
to practically resolve this...

- Sai



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