Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to donate to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida? And if donations will be collected by the Verein, do they have a public budget or plan for spending that money?
As people said, for tax reasons (to get deductions), people will always want to donate locally.
I work for a U.S.-based non-profit that has been trying to get money from its German chapter, which is a stand-alone Eingetragener Verein. We have not been able to do that; tax implications according to our German lawyers are too severe, meaning the German tax authorities are threatening to take the non-profit status away.
From the U.S. side, the theory, I'm being told, is to make all non-US chapters "friends-of" organizations. This is not an officially recognized term, much like there is no officially recognized international non-profit. However, it is a practice recognized by the IRS. Key supposedly is to have stable predictable behavior (ie cashflows). Then they won't be on your back.
Transfering money out of the U.S. has not been a tax problem for us, the IRS so far has played nicely with us. But getting money from Germany to the U.S. has eluded us. If you figure out how to do it without endangering non-profit status in Germany, please let me know!
Dirk
Interested in wikis? Please go to http://www.wikisym.org! Take a Geek's Tour of Silicon Valley! http://www.ageekstour.com Dirk Riehle | +49 172 184 8755 | http://www.riehle.org