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
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