[Wikipedia-l] Interstate charitable solicitations

Mon Oct 6 23:01:03 UTC 2003

From: "Richard Grevers" <lists at dramatic.co.nz>

> Hmm, since the Wikimedia Foundation is actually supposed to be a global
> organisation, it is starting to sound as though it might have been better
> to register it somewhere beyond the reach of US beauraucracy. Do all world
> charities have to register in all 50 states, or only if their home base is
> in one of them?

If a foreign charity is soliciting donations in the US or maintaining
an office there it would come under the jurisdiction of US laws
just as if any person had come to the US they are subject to US laws.
You can't say, I am not guilty by reason of nationality, can you?

 Of course no foreign  government would recognize any such regulatory
 law outside the US as a matter of course, but they could recognize
a link between the US and some foreign law, for example there are
bilateral tax treaties that allows some Canadian, Mexican and
Israeli citizens/corporations  to take deductions from income for US
charities
and vis-a-versa.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p526.pdf (at page 3, first col.)

There is nothing stopping anyone from creating
their own foundation or trust for the benefit of Wikipedia.
It is just that Jimbo beat the rest of us to it.

Alex756