On Thu, 2006-08-17 at 13:32 +0200, Charles Schulz wrote: > Finn Gruwier Larsen a écrit : > > Hi Charles, > > > > Charles Schulz skrev: > > > >> But you could set up a local NPO. I think every Native-Lang project > >> should have one, for this purpose and other "more important" issues. Did > >> you talk to Soren about this? > > > > What's an NPO? > Sorry: "Not for Profit organization" like an "association", a club, or > something.
Certain types of organisation enjoy tax benefits. In the USA a NPO such as a foundation qualifies for tax relief for donations and the US tax system makes it very useful to have a Foundation registered. Its a bit of effort to do it but it means corporates, for example, are much more likely to donate. In England, the organisation has to be a registered charity to qualify for tax relief. This is more complicated and the rules are more restrictive. Most NPOs are companies limited by guarantee which means they are like normal companies but they normally don't pay shareholder dividends but they don't get tax relief on donations - well they can in some ways eg if they invoiced a company for a service then the company supplying the service would treat it as a business expense so in effect it would get tax relief. There are ways round some issues but the accountancy can get complex. A new class of organisation is the Community Interest Company. These are companies that run as regular companies and can even raise VC type money but they declare they are in business for the public good and limit any share holder dividends to reasonable levels. The idea is that they can attract investment to grow and do enterprising things but the investors would be social entrepreneurs rather than looking to make a financial killing because most of the money will be ploughed back for the good of the community. I have a project with a sizeable town I'm acting as a consultant in that is considering setting up such a company with the aim of getting the whole town on to Linux thin clients and by extension OOo. In the end, the choice of the type of organisation can be complicated. Regular companies here qualify for grants from the Department of Trade and Industry for things like market research and tax relief for R&D so sometimes being a NPO is a significant disadvantage. It might also block sources of investment. But whatever the case having something is better than having nothing so probably best to start with whatever is easiest to set up. Its always possible to change later or set up a new organisation. Quite a lot of for profit companies set up charitable foundations when they are successful. Ian -- www.theINGOTS.org www.schoolforge.org.uk www.opendocumentfellowship.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
