On 3/23/2014 1:08 AM, Fæ wrote:
On 23/03/2014, Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)frontier.com>
There isn't a legitimate basis for evaluating how the funds are spent
other than A's desires and intentions. It's still a restricted gift, we
can't pretend that this is money from general fundraising and decide it
should have been spent in a way that better fits our priorities. Had the
...
When I was getting legal advice on the issues of Wikimedia UK becoming
a charity, one of the issues I had to bend my mind around was the tax
implications of how the charity could provide grants to non-UK
projects.
It is not possible for a UK charity to offer restricted grants without
risking having to pay tax as if they were paying for a profit making
commercial service, rather than gifting money. For this reason the UK
charity will only offer *unrestricted* grants, based on a published
proposal from the non-UK organization that will spend the grant on
charitable purposes. I have little doubt that the IRS rules are just
as stringent, otherwise US charities would be frequently used as
container companies for tax avoidance and money-laundering.
I'm not sure why you're responding to a point about the Wikimedia Foundation
in the role of receiving a grant, one that in this case did not require
funds to be transferred outside their country of origin, with a hypothetical
discussion about Wikimedia UK in the role of making a grant, in which the
funds would be transferred between countries that would not necessarily have
the same systems for taxation or charitable organizations. Are charities in
the UK prohibited from accepting donations to which any form of restriction
is attached?
No, but they would have to be pretty badly managed not to understand
if there would be later tax, criminality, or reputation damage
implications either for themselves or the donating party.
Fae
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