[TriLUG] About the SSSCA....

[Matthew Hoover]

As an officer of another 501(c)3 educational organization (Eno River
Assoc.), I can tell you that there are limits on what kinds of lobbing you
can do, and how much you can spend on lobbing as a 501(c)3.  That being
said, sending letters to elected officials stating the groups position on
issues is clearly an OK thing to do.  The major places that the organization
can get into trouble is if the recommend one candidate for office over
another, or spend more that a certain percentage of the organizations funds
on lobbing.
Since I am not an expert, it might be worth asking whoever prepares the IRS
form 990's for their opinion.  I know that the Eno River Assoc. received
advice to file certain forms with the IRS on how we do lobbing, and that our
accountant recommends that all 501(c)3 file these forms, even if they don't
do any lobbing.  If the steering committee is interested, I can forward the
email address of the ERA's account/auditor to them off list.
--matt hoover

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin - The Alchemist - Sonney" <alchemist at darkcanvas.com>
To: <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 9:39 AM
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] About the SSSCA....


> On Tue, Sep 11, 2001 at 09:32:44AM -0400, jeremyp at pobox.com spoke thusly:
> > Doesn't our status as a 501(c)3 educational organization limit our
> > involvement in political things like this?  I don't know much about
that,
> > just thought I'd bring it up.  Don't want to jeapordize tax deductions
for
> > our pizza sponsors. :)
>
> I don't think writing letters & faxing them is against the law. I
> think it has more to do with giving money. If it does, though, we'll
> make arangements to work around it *grin*
>
> How does that sound?
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------
> --      Kevin "The Alchemist" Sonney      --
> --  New email : alchemist at darkcanvas.com  --
> --  http://www.darkcanvas.com/~alchemist  --
> --  ICQ: 4855069            AIM: ksonney  --
> --------------------------------------------
>
> "If you'll read the subtext for many of those old strips, you'll find
> the heart of an old-fashioned Libertarian. And I'd be a Libertarian,
> if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners."
>   -- Berkley Breathed, 2001
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