[Noisebridge-discuss] 2010 taxes

Sai noisebridge at saizai.com
Thu Jan 13 19:32:31 UTC 2011


On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 12:40 PM, Sean Cusack <sean.p.cusack at gmail.com> wrote:
> so anything you give over $40/mo is therefore a proper donation.

Not commenting on whether your suggestion is proper, but just
something to note: if people want to do this, there should be an
official decision.

Why? The NB treasurer needs to know what funds are "donations" vs what
funds are "membership fees" (i.e. in return for value rendered). It
affects how the tests for nonprofithood are calculated by IRS
standards.

FWIW my understanding (though I've not tried to push it on this point)
is that membership fees are not donations, period. But it may well be
that this is subject to the same test as payments in general, which is
that any money *over* fair market value is deductible as a donation.
(For example, the LCS has used that for conference fees - some people
paid us well over the going rate for a ticket, and we counted that
excess as donation.)

I simply don't know if that standard applies to membership fees too,
or how one would make an objective determination of the overall
"value" of a NB membership.

May be worth consulting w/ the NB tax advisor on this.

- Sai



More information about the Noisebridge-discuss mailing list