[Foundation-l] Re: Chapters, deductibility and donation profiles (was Wikimania 2006 - host city contest to open onSeptember 1st 20)

Wed Aug 17 09:06:04 UTC 2005

>Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to donate
>to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida? And if donations
>will be collected by the Verein, do they have a public budget or plan
>for spending that money?

As people said, for tax reasons (to get deductions), people will always 
want to donate locally.

I work for a U.S.-based non-profit that has been trying to get money from 
its German chapter, which is a stand-alone Eingetragener Verein. We have 
not been able to do that; tax implications according to our German lawyers 
are too severe, meaning the German tax authorities are threatening to take 
the non-profit status away.

 From the U.S. side, the theory, I'm being told, is to make all non-US 
chapters "friends-of" organizations. This is not an officially recognized 
term, much like there is no officially recognized international non-profit. 
However, it is a practice recognized by the IRS. Key supposedly is to have 
stable predictable behavior (ie cashflows). Then they won't be on your back.

Transfering money out of the U.S. has not been a tax problem for us, the 
IRS so far has played nicely with us. But getting money from Germany to the 
U.S. has eluded us. If you figure out how to do it without endangering 
non-profit status in Germany, please let me know!

Dirk

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