On Feb 5, 2009, at 10:02 PM, Tom Hughes wrote: > > What may be confusing some people is that the UK doesn't really have > the > concept of a non-profit that some jurisdictions have, so there is no > special tax status for companies limited by guarantee. Only registered > charities get special tax status and registering as a charity is much > more onerous than just forming a non-profit company.
It's very similar in the USA. You can start a corporation as a not-for- profit, which makes your tax reporting similar. You still have to pay taxes, it's just that the amount will always be zero. Or, you can file with the IRS for recognition as a non-profit to receive 501(c)3 status. It usually takes a couple of letters of correspondence with them, and about 9 months, and there are complicated forms to fill out, AND you have to file a special tax form every year AND you have to demonstrate that you are actually being funded by the public (as opposed to a rich dude who wants some place to dump his excess money). "much more onerous" describes it very well. -- Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson [email protected] - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
