Hi,
Am 19.10.2011 18:52, schrieb Dennis E. Hamilton:
Considering the prominence being given to Team OpenOffice.org in some of these
conversations:
It appears (according to that font of knowledge, Wikipedia) that an e.V in
Germany is somehow comparable to an LLC or LLP in the US and elsewhere. It
can be for a profit-making or non-profit activity. Whether non-profits are
necessarily charities in Germany is not clear to me either.
not sure, if these terms can be translated 1:1.
"Non-profit" in the sense that you do not want to make profit can be
defined in the statutes. This is the case for TeamOO (not sure if the
statutes I'm reading are current).
To be approved as charity you need to follow some additional rules (what
mainly means you need to work in one or more fields that are accepted as
charitable by German law). This needs to be approved by the tax office
(because donations to charities are tax deductible).
This was not the case for TeamOO. I would even say for good reasons, as
it may be quite complicated for a German charity to spent money for a
global project.
Neither the non-profit nor the charity status imply that you need to
publish your budget or other internals. German associations are only
liable to their members (and the tax office ;) ).
All this is just from my experience at OOoDeV/FrODeV - ianal.
regards,
André
