X.Org Foundation Loses 501(c)3 Non-Profit Status 208
An anonymous reader writes "The X.Org Foundation, which drives the X.Org Server projects, Mesa, and Wayland open-source programs, had its tax-exempt status revoked by the IRS. It turns out the X.Org Foundation had put in quite a lot of work to become a non-profit organization, with guidance from the Software Freedom Law Center. They got in trouble after failing to routinely file their taxes on time. There's also been a host of other X.Org accounting errors in recent years. There was also the recent news of the IRS going after open-source projects, too."
No one to blame but themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No one to blame but themselves (Score:5, Funny)
How hard is it to file your taxes on time?
How hard is it to deliver your release on time?
Hey, we're software folks . . . we just don't deliver on time. The IRS should know this, and cut all software folks some slack on that April 15th date.
Re:No one to blame but themselves (Score:4, Insightful)
software folks if working with money of sufficient amounts should hire an accountant.
Re:No one to blame but themselves (Score:5, Informative)
> software folks if working with money of sufficient amounts should hire an accountant.
They have one, but he apparently didn't do his job. FTFA:
Stuart Kreitman, the X.Org Foundation accountant and Oracle employee, wrote during the Board of Directors' IRC meeting this week, "The status of the 501c3 is lost because we (me) failed to file the 3 past years' tax returns on time. Note that we've Never filed returns since our first re-organization to the LLC in 2005. I was taken by surprize that the IRS hit us so rudely. I've had little issues with my own returns and have always found them to be reasonable and friendly."
Re:No one to blame but themselves (Score:5, Funny)
...Oracle employee...
I should have known.
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You suspect sabotage?
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Or incompetence, more likely.
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What gets me is that the IRS chose to wait for 3 years to nail them for a late return.
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My point is that it appears the IRS did nothing *at all* for 3 years, then ambushed them all at once.
Surely the IRS should have given them *some* kind of notice about failure to file?
Re:No one to blame but themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
( Source [irs.gov] )
This isn't an "ambush." What accountant doesn't realize the importance of filing taxes on time? What accountant fails to realize this *three years in a row*? What board trusts their financial matters to an accountant who doesn't realize these things?
This is standard procedure - they failed to file properly 3 years in a row, and so they had their tax exemption revoked. The IRS isn't "springing" anything on them. The IRS isn't "ambushing" them. The IRS is following it's standard procedure - if you want special tax exempt status, there are a few requirements you have to meet. One of these is filing your tax returns in a timely and complete manner. If you fail to do this, you will automatically be de-listed, and you'll receive a polite letter indicating that that has happened. They shouldn't be chasing after people. The agreement when you're granted tax-exempt status is that you will file properly and on time. That's your notice. Failing to do so results in revocation.
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You completely evaded my point (not missed, but deliberately dodged) that the IRS chose to remain silent about it.
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Go read the Board of Director IRC logs for the week of 08-08-2013.
SFLC was the address they listed for the foundation on their tax filing; SFLC says "we didn't receive any warnings." That everybody claimed "not to have received anything" doesn't mean the IRS said "we're not going to follow our standard process, which indicates we send notices when we fail to receive Form 990 filings" - and failure to receive the IRS notice in no way exempts them from their affirmative duty to file their tax forms required
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Sounds about as lame as lame can get :(
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The same timely delivery issues could be said of defense contractors and weapons systems.
Re:No one to blame but themselves (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, no sympathy here. I sit on the board of a local historic preservation society, and we're 501c3. We pay our accountant something like $1000/year (some of her rate is counted as an in-kind donation, but nothing we do is really that complicated) and she keeps the paperwork current and straightened out. I'm relatively sure that X.org runs with a bigger budget than we do and could find accounting services, so this is just gross incompetence on their part.
Re:No one to blame but themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, I love all the woe is me, big brother is out to get me. While you fail to play by the rules set in place.
You want Tax Exempt status, good, make sure you follow the rules to keep it.
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The default status should be that you pay no taxes. It is up to the government to prove that you should pay.
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They could kepe (Score:3)
The problem is that the rules are phenomenally complex.
Sure they are, but that doesn't stop 90% of people from filing on time, or at least filing for the automatic extension. For that matter, nearly every church in the country manages to do the same.
I get the idea that the IRS doesn't revoke the status for 'simple' mistakes, they revoke it for major things like not filing for 3+ years. If they're acting within the rules of an exempt organization, even an audit isn't going to turn up more than minor fines at most, and at best it'd amount to IRS agents helping
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>> The problem is that the rules are phenomenally complex.
>
> Sure they are, but that doesn't stop 90% of people from filing on time,
Most people have taxes that are trivial because they have no money to speak of and do nothing interesting financially.
Is that you Joe?
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Actually, churches are an exception. Churches that have been granted 501(c)3 status as a church under 170(b)(1)(A)(i) are not required to file information returns with the IRS. They get special treatment.
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The problem is that the rules are phenomenally complex. It's easy to say that they should have just followed the rules, but IRS rules are a serious PITA to satisfy. It is quite likely that no matter what Xorg had done, the IRS could have found some error in their compliance that would enable them to revoke 501c3 status. So the real issue is that by making it so hard to comply with the rules, regulations, and laws, it raises the question of whether the government is using "selective enforcement" to punish people, organizations, and views that they don't like. Did this happen because of a general review of nonprofits, in which case this was a simple case of good enforcement, or are "hackers" being targeted by the government (for lots of reasons, e.g. resistance to NSA monitoring), and any one of a number of technical violations would have led to the IRS' actions? In that way it is similar to the Aaron Schwartz case, and is something that should be noted, if not actively resisted.
They can't be so complex... If you don't understand them you get someone who does understand. Put away the tinfoil hat about selective enforcement of a software group. Enforcement of the rules is a good thing. Just because you may support the group that had the action taken against them doesn't mean it wasn't correct. It is 100% their fault for not maintaining compliance with the requirements if they valued that status...
Re:No one to blame but themselves (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the "ridiculously complex" terms they're expected to comply with:
1) File a Form 990 on time each year.
I'm guessing that X.org would be eligible for a 990-N (< $50,000 gross receipts each year), also known as an 'e-Postcard,' because it can be filed online. Here's the ridiculously complex information [irs.gov] required on a Form 990-N:
If by some stroke of fundraising genius, they managed to take in more than $50,000, they'd need to file a 990 or 990-EZ (EZ can be filed as long as < 200,000 per year is collected). The EZ is 3 pages, and looks pretty much like a standard Federal 1040-EZ, just with questions related to income sources for the foundation, instead of an individual.
Some tax laws are stupidly complex. These rules aren't, nor are they particularly burdensome to comply with.
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So they couldn't find a GNU Tax software. So it must be a political reason.
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The problem is that the rules are phenomenally complex.
They are phenomenally complex in the same way that programming "Hello World" is phenomenally complex. They should pay someone to do it for them.
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So, hire a qualified accountant -- it's not like other entities don't do their taxes properly and on-time to retain their charitable status.
But "they got in trouble after failing to routinely file their taxes on time" implies more than once, and something of their own doing.
So, before we ponder such things as the IRS cracking down on people, the
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The problem is that the rules are phenomenally complex.
So, which 501c3 do you run, so that you're oh so on the forefront of teh rulez? Because I think you're just making it all up.
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There's no evidence that this was the result of some sort of "dragnet" focusing on an organization that drew the ire of the IRS. Organizations which fail to file completely and on time AUTOMATICALLY have their status revoked after 3 years of failure to file in such a fashion. (See this page: http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Automatic-Revocation-of-Exemption [irs.gov])
If they wanted to avoid the long arm of the IRS, they should have... filed their taxes on time, and met the requirements of their tax-e
Re: No one to blame but themselves (Score:5, Funny)
Filing a tax return on time is a complicated rule that's too hard to follow?
No, but the way they keep moving April 15th to a different day of the week every year sure is hard to keep up with!
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For example, if the IRS came out with a statement that said "We looked at a sample of 10,000 registered 501c3's, and found that 53 of them had not filed a return in the last 2 years. We revoked the 501c3 status on 51 of them, and are looking into assertions by 2 of them that they did file and we [the IRS] must have lost them." I'd look upon this action a lot more favorably.
They have [irs.gov]
This isn't some mustache-twirling conspiracy. X.org failed to file the paperwork and it caught up with them. The IRS does this
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Well, organizational taxes are substantially more complex. Lacking a full-time accountant(or at least a part time one on retainer) would make it really easy to get overwhelmed.
Re:No one to blame but themselves (Score:4, Informative)
No really a couple thousand a year would likely cover it. They are not that huge an organization.
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This is a scam from the IRS.
They are doing this to many, many non-profit organizations. Quite a few non-profit organizations are being hit by this and the IRS is taking advantage of the general disorganization and small size of a lot of non-profit groups to pocket themselves a tidy sum.
The scam goes like this. New policies enacted by the IRS now require non-profits to fill out a card verifying their non-profit status every three years. Now this is simple and easy to do, but its also simple and easy to fo
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It seems not terribly unlike letting your driver's license expire... if you forget about it and end up needing it for something (say you were in an accident or something), you'll pay a rather nasty fine... but you can still renew it and get a new one, as long as the time period since it expired hasn't been too long.
Oh come off it (Score:4, Insightful)
It is not hard to remember, in particular because with an organization of any reasonable size you'd want to hire an accountant to do your taxes. If you are a non-profit, you'd hire an accountant who knows how to deal with that.
Any business taxes, profit or non-profit, are a bit complex and this isn't unique to the US. So you hire an accountant. Just part of doing business. My parents used to run a small business in Canada, about 5 employees including themselves. They hired an accountant to do their taxes. It wasn't that expensive and the accountant made sure everything was in order and the Canadian government was happy.
Well same shit here. X.org should have paid someone (or some firm) a couple of grand a year to do their tax accounting.
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Small, all volunteer organizations with virtually no budget are being hit by this as well. They really can't afford accountants.
I know that these rules are easy to comply with, but they're also easy to miss. Much like rebates and other consumer programs, the system is designed with the idea that many will miss/skip/forget to do the easy tasks that the program requires, and enable the IRS to make money.
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Which is why all fines collected by an agency of the government should be deposited in the general fund.
However, given that the IRS is a child agency of the treasury itself a conflict of interest might be unavoidable.
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Harder than it looks.
The Gentoo Foundation ran into the same kind of trouble don't forget.
Failing to file taxes? (Score:2)
Why do you have to file taxes if you are tax-exempt?
Re:Failing to file taxes? (Score:5, Informative)
Tax exempt isn't magic (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't get awarded tax exempt status and then are allowed to do as you please. If that were the case, every company ever would start out as a charity, get tax exempt status, and then change over.
So you have to file and show that your activities still warrant tax exempt status, that you aren't violating the rules for it. For example suppose you run a non-profit and you get a massive donation, some billionaire leaves you a billion dollars. You decide cool, you'll pay all of it to yourself as salary for that year. I mean the entity is still "non-profit" right? Your salary is a cost, so no profit was made!
Ummm... no. You'd get in all kinds of trouble for that. Doesn't matter what kind of games you tried to play. Hence, you have to file taxes to show that your operations are indeed non-profit, that the money you receive goes to pay for the operation of your organization, not to enrich yourself.
If you want an organization to enrich yourself, that's fine, but that is called a business, and you have to pay taxes on that.
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Not to mention that you would *personally* owe income taxes on that brand new salary of yours even if the organization got away with paying it to you in the first place.
Also, arranging to have the organization pay you such an obscene salary just so you could skim off a donation would probably be malfeasance on your part against the organization, and is tantamount to embezzling.
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Pastors absolutely pay taxes. I took a class on it in college (needed 1 unit and that's all they offered that fit my requirements).
Pastors can get a housing allowance, which doesn't count as taxes (because of parishes and the like), but it's limited to a certain percentage of their salary. Other than a couple other minor extras, they pay taxes just like you and me.
I know because the professor had been audited 7 years in a row by the IRS and was found even or got paid all 7 years (he used every available t
what this means (Score:5, Informative)
OK the article should have said what this means and didn't. The IRS reinstates 501c3 status pretty easily once you clean up your paperwork. You can apply for retroactive reinstatement but that requires a good explanation of why they didn't file, and if X.org's reason is some variant of "we forgot" that won't cut it. This means they are liable for corporate income taxes but I'm sure their expenses easily kill any income. The big problem is often state taxes apply during the period where they are off the 501c3 rolls. But here they might be able to do OK on an appeal.
My guess is that this is not going to be too expensive but it will be annoying.
They're not the only ones (Score:2, Interesting)
Tax-exempt status revoked for hundreds of area organizations [sj-r.com] (If you get a paywall you can get past by saving the site source to your hard drive and opening that up.
X.org forfeits agreement. IRS does job. News at 11 (Score:4, Insightful)
So X.org applied for and received 501(c)3 status [wikipedia.org], and then failed to live to its end of the bargain, resulting in the IRS revoking its status.
Someone please tell me why this really newsworthy? Is it only because its a company related to software? (Of which I bet the majority of /.ers don't even use - and I said majority .. not vocal individuals)
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X.org is the group writing X11. So, no I'd say a large chunk of /.ers if not a majority will use their software during any given decade.
Re:X.org forfeits agreement. IRS does job. News at (Score:5, Informative)
X.org is not a company. It is is a group of volunteers, either individuals or corporate employees begin donated by their employers. The group writes and maintains the Xserver which is in use on almost every Linux desktop and many embedded systems. This code is given away for free to benefit all who use Linux.
If that doesn't qualify as a 501(c)3 I don't know what would qualify. The group has no revenue, they rely on donations to function and everything they make is given away for free -- to anyone who asks with no restrictions other than some minor licensing terms. And the licensing terms are really minor, like give proper attribution to the authors of the code. The benefit from being a 501(c)3 does not accrue to X.org, the tax benefits goes to the companies donating to the organization since those donations are now tax deductible. Hopefully that means X.org will get more donations.
I do agree that a few companies seem to be abusing 501(c)3 and open source. Those companies are making captive open source projects which basically only benefit themselves. But that's more of a marketing gimmick than a tax avoidance one. The resources being given to the captive 501(c)3 were deductible to the parent corporation anyway. So if the IRS dissolves these captive 501(c)3s they aren't going to get any more revenue. They'll just move where the deductions are being taken.
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I think you are misunderstanding what is going on here. X.org qualified as a 501(c)3 corporation. They lost the qualification because they didn't file the required income taxes. This is completely X.org's fault.
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I love how everyone here is basically hammering on the point that non-profit companies should by default be required to file taxes, even though they never have to pay them.
I understand that tax policy requires forms. What I'm railing against is that theres always a form and the government keeps asking for more and more forms.
Forms.... the lifeblood of bureaucracy.....
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It's the cost of accepting donations. How will the government or even the donors know that everything is above board without regular filings of income statements and tax forms?
"Trust us" isn't good enough.
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"Trust us" isn't good enough.
Funny, the NSA seems to think it is...
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The group has no revenue, they rely on donations to function and everything they make is given away for free
Prove it. Show me the paperwork.
That is the core of the issue. X.org is required to submit proof of this belief on an annual basis to IRS. They didn't do that.
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I'm not an insider but I suspect this has to do with Oracle's acquisition of Sun. Sun used to take care of X.org. Now that Oracle has swallowed Sun a lot of things that Sun used to do have been cut. So X.org needs some new friend with a legal and tax department to keep everything in order. Groups of volunteer programmers are known not to be competent in these matters.
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It's newsworthy on slashdot because a nerdy site was involved. And I think that an organization responsible for a pervasive technical standard qualifies as nerdy.
not worth it (Score:2)
I though text-exempt status also meant you didn't have to file all that paperwork once you had it. Lot of good it does to have tax-exempt status for a non-profit that makes no money, anyway.
Re:not worth it (Score:5, Insightful)
I though text-exempt status also meant you didn't have to file all that paperwork once you had it. Lot of good it does to have tax-exempt status for a non-profit that makes no money, anyway.
First off... Non-Profit does not mean they don't make money, only that any money and assets they acquire do not belong to someone or a for profit entity. Non-Profits can and do make money, sell things and services at a profit, pay employees and all the same things other businesses do, but they cannot acquire cash and assets which end up owned by an individual or other for profit entity.
Second, the filing requirements for tax returns are not that involved for a 501c3. For most non-profits it amounts to filing out a form similar to a 1040Ez. The IRS generally wants to know where your money came from so they can cross reference donors deductions with receipts, at least in the general sense. I don't believe that a non-profit has to report who is giving to it, just how much they received. I also don't think that they would be required to pay taxes, only file the report.
The real problem here is that the organization that can't be bothered to file the yearly reports is likely going to be a problem for someone wanting to give money and take the tax deduction. If the organization doesn't supply a receipt a donor will be limited to $250 and if they cannot supply the IRS with the yearly return, I'm sure they won't be bothered to send out receipts either.
Seems that this organization doesn't really care about the money side of things. This is a shame, because the accounting is NOT that hard and the risks of not having proper controls in place is pretty big.
IRS+USPS (Score:2)
I was treasurer of a small non-profit ($200k/yr) and our Form 990 filing ran about 60 pages. That's tedious, but was normally straightforward. The interesting part came when filing for the automatic 3-month extension* (Form 8460?) in the mail. The USPS seems to tuck these forms behind the counter, and wait till the deadline passes. Then the IRS would take a month to tell us that the extension was received 3 days late, and we owed them a fine of $1000/day for 40 days. Then we'd appeal, say we were sorry
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It does in fact do a lot of good. For example, you can attract more donations if you're a c3, because you can deduct those donations from your income. Also, a lot of vendors and service providers will give a large discount for c3s when they buy their stuff.
You still have to file your paperwork.
But the NFL is Non-profit (Score:5, Informative)
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Oh I have a problem with it. My point of view is that those with money like the NFL can always find a way not to pay taxes. Corporations do it all the time. At the same time, politicians want to make you believe that any one trying to correct these disparities will come into town looking for your women and children for blood sacrifices.
While I don't think the IRS is a benign entity, their hands are tied in both cases. Tax-exempt organizations have to file on time. Even though the NFL might make billions
Re:But the NFL is Non-profit (Score:4, Informative)
The NFL is not a good example. In 1966 it was explicitly allowed to file as a 501c6. That's black letter law, not the enforcement of a regulation. Congress not the IRS is who you should be complaining to.
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Meanwhile, no one has a problem with the National Football League being considered "non-profit" by IRS standards
What does the NFL as an organization make for profit? Each individual team is owned by someone (or a group) that pays taxes on their team's profit (in theory, at least). The NFL itself, though, doesn't have an owner or shareholders. Of course you can argue about how much the top-level executives get paid, but they should be paying taxes on their salaries just like any other full-time employee of a non-profit.
same thing happend to an outdoors club I was in (Score:2)
xorg / their accountant at fault (Score:2)
What's more about the subject? (Score:2)
Many open source projects and organizations aren't a business, and it can be challenging for nerds to keep track of tax rules for various organization types. Depending on where you have your base the rules may differ, and there may even be rules that exempt you from filing the taxes at all.
Maybe it's time to look around for another home for some non-profit organizations where the political climate is better.
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Many open source projects and organizations aren't a business, and it can be challenging for nerds to keep track of tax rules for various organization types. Depending on where you have your base the rules may differ, and there may even be rules that exempt you from filing the taxes at all.
Which is why you get an accountant.
If you accept money, prepare to get an accountant. No one made X.Org accept money.
Re:that crazy old IRS (Score:4, Informative)
OK, I understand people don't like to TRFA, but did you not even RTF summary? What tricks? The "trick" of revoking tax exempt status for orgs that fail to properly file the required paperwork?
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So the "powers that be" infiltrated X.Org's finance/accounting groups and made them not follow the rules for non-profits?
This is no different than the spun up fiasco a few months ago about the IRS investigating non-profits that appeared to be fronts for political organizations (and contrary to the Fox spin, it was not just targeting the Tea Party). To be a non-profit there are some specific rules you have to follow to maintain the status. It is the IRS's job to investigate to make sure you are following tho
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I was actually talking about the IRS itself, not X.org's accountants.
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I was actually talking about the IRS itself, not X.org's accountants.
Your claim was that there is a conspiracy against OSS organizations, but this wasn't some obscure rule or gray area that they used to revoke the status. The X.org accountant also admits that he screwed it up so unless you have evidence that he is a plant by the IRS or "the powers that be" there is no conspiracy evidenced by this case.
The IRS's job is to collect taxes according to the tax law (convoluted though it may be). Part of that job is to make sure that people and businesses are paying what they shoul
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My allegation was that the IRS chose to be stricter with X.org than it is with other nonprofits.
3 years of silence and then a sudden tax exempt revoke is a very cagey response to 3 years of not filing any tax returns.
The IRS shouldn't have waited that long without sending notice.
The fact that the feds and the corporations are in bed elsewhere is also a good reason to at least suspect underhandedness on the IRS's part.
Fuck off (Score:3, Informative)
They didn't file their taxes. It has nothing to do with politics.
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What part of scrutiny is not lawful?
I want the IRS to investigate 501c organizations of all stripes, frankly many of them are likely frauds.
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Not everyone who supports a state is a fascist.
Lots of things can be unjust but being asked to prove you are supposed to be exempt from taxation is not.
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Except, really, they didn't. [salon.com] They "came for" -- i.e., put on their "be on the lookout" list -- several different classes of non-profits, including "Open Source", "Occupy", "Free Palestine", and "Tea Party" groups, all at the same time. No "first they came for" about it.
But since Tea Party groups were essentially created by Fox "News", you heard a hell of a lot about that. Not so much about Palestinian rights groups having the exact same problem.
Re:Solution (Score:5, Funny)
"We should tax all foreigners living abroad." - Monty Python
The British Empire did this successfully for hundreds of years. It's a pretty good revenue model, don't knock it.
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"We should tax all foreigners living abroad." - Monty Python
The British Empire did this successfully for hundreds of years. It's a pretty good revenue model, don't knock it.
The US is one of the few countries that tax it's own citizens while they live abroad. My (half) American friend has to fill out a US tax return every year, although since he lives in the UK the tax he already paid here counts towards (and exceeds) the US requirement.
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Actually that is pretty common and your friend can deduct that tax if the UK is a tax treaty member and I am almost sure they are.
This is for a very simple reason, without it all the big earners would simply have their pay given to them in another nation.
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If I move to Bermuda I'd pay no tax to the UK.
http://rt.com/usa/americans-refuse-citizenship-tax-317/ [rt.com] "The United States is the only country out of 34 in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that continues to tax citizens regardless of where they live around the world."
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This is for a very simple reason, without it all the big earners would simply have their pay given to them in another nation.
Uh, no.
I believe there are three or four nations on the planet who try to tax their citizens no matter where they live, and America is the only first-world nation on the list. It's one reason why the US government have made renouncing American citizenship so hard.
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There's no such thing as a half-citizen of a country. You are a citizen, a permanent legal immigrant, a temporary visitor with a visa, or an illegal immigrant. Taxation varies accordingly. There may even be a category or two in between those, like dual citizenship, but if you're a dual citizen, you aren't automatically assessed taxes in both locations -- other factors come into play.
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As I just wrote above -- America is an exception when it comes to taxation of citizens living abroad: http://rt.com/usa/americans-refuse-citizenship-tax-317/ [rt.com]
(I meant "half" in the usual British sense, i.e. one parent is American.)
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For tax purposes, the immigration status matters very, very little. You're either nonresident or resident for tax purposes. That's *it*. You can be a resident for tax purposes but illegally present from the point of view of immigration law, for example.
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At least the IRS is reasonable in allowing foreign taxes to count against domestic taxes.
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And start how many trade/real wars by breaking a multitude of treaties?
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This is the type of dirty trick their lobbyists would do.
I doubt Microsoft even knows X.org exists or what they do.
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The new Slashdot. Where truth is modded to troll. This is exactly the kind of thing Microsoft engages in. Anything that is good, and "free" software enrages them to having fits. They can't stand the idea.
Look back on funding SCO to try and cripple Linux. Taking over Nokia to kill off Maemo. And I think they had their filthy hands in this.
What is really sad is that Slashdot is now filled with those that can't see the calculated evil that Microsoft as a company really is.
And being modded down on Slashdot for pointing out even potential Microsoft evil doing shows how things here have changed.
Sad.
I agree the moderation was unfair. I don't agree with you, but you weren't trolling.
Microsoft funded SCO because Linux as a server platform is and remains a credible threat, and SCO did a good job of convincing a lot of people that Linux contained violations of their IP. Not anyone that mattered, in the end, but if that had been true their investment would have been very lucrative.
Microsoft "took over" Nokia because there was no one left to partner or buy in the handheld computing space. HP destroyed Palm,
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Re:X.org tea party front? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, counselor, in your estimation - is the IRS Inspector General a Tea Party Libertarian employed by Fox News, as well?
Because the IG report [cnn.com] basically confirmed what you're trying to hand-wave away - that organizations were targeted for "special" processing which imposed unnecessary burdens on them - for no other reason than their name, or chosen policy positions (e.g., a focus on "government spending").
From the report:
The lesson? Sometimes, the government really *is* wrong when Fox News reports they did something wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
It is pretty messed up, when people cant get off their soap box long enough to read what actually happened.
Or even worse, you did and still think this somehow reflects reality. In either case, you need a reality check. Just make sure you notify the IRS about it after you cash it.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. A Top Shelf Single-Malt Party is Change I Can Believe It.
Re: (Score:2)
Seems to me that it is a spiritual quest more than a software project. Let's decide what the spiritual focus is and file some paperwork forgetting this ridiculous tax crap.
This! It's already had a schism, so what else does it need in order to qualify for the benefits religious groups enjoy without the annoying rigmarole of actually filing numbers?