[TriLUG] Upcoming vote on TriLUG non-profit status

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

On Thu, 3 Feb 2011, Jeff Schornick wrote:

> (*) I'd actually appreciate some advice on how to 
> calculate any applicable tax due by TriLUG, given our 
> non-501c3 status.  Contact me off-list if you can help. 
> Thanks!

on-list

how about taking the books to H&R Block, telling them you 
haven't a clue and ask them to handle it.

This is what I did 2 yrs ago for my personal taxes - the 
hardest thing I do all year. It used to take me 6 weekends 
and I'm just a regular wage earner. They did my taxes and 
figured that I'd missed out on $1k each year for as far back 
as I could go (which for ammended returns is 3 yrs). It took 
several hours the first time but last year was a breeze.

These people love filling out forms and think legalese is 
the neatest thing ever. Where I have a form, they have a 
spreadsheet and when they put an entry into a box, other 
boxes leap. The paper forms don't do that and I would have 
to know that there is some entry in another form I have fill 
out. I don't.

The tax code is sufficiently opaque to people like me that I 
think Congress has written the tax code to privatize the 
filling in of tax forms.

There's only been two people on this thread who've indicated 
that they have any dexterity with finances - Matt and Aaron.
There haven't been people in the near recent past in TriLUG 
and the SC with this knowledge, there aren't now and with 
the club being 100% techies, we should expect it will stay 
this way in the future.

Why not admit the obvious, that none of us know what to do, 
cough up the money (I expect $100-300) and be done with it.
I would imagine that there's been more than $300 of TriLUG 
member's time and aggravation already spent on this problem.

Let's say we reincorporate as a 501(c)(3). How much would it 
cost to handle our finances once a year? There can't be more 
than 30 or so entries in the accounts for the year. Say it 
costs $100 for an accountant (or H&R Block person) to make 
sure we've done the right thing, even if it's just sending 
in the postcard each year. I expect we'll get back more than 
$100 through being a 501(c)(3) - divide the Novel donation 
by $100/yr.

Joe

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Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
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