[Foundation-l] Priorities

[Anthony]

On 10/23/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > On 10/23/07, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org> wrote:
> >> Florence Devouard wrote:
> >>
> >>> * the tax deduction is only available in the USA. Not anywhere else.
> >> I put my donation last year through my accountants as tax deductible, and
> >> I'm in Belgium. What happened?
> >>
> > I'm pretty sure Florence was wrong here.
>
> ???
>
> I'm pretty sure I was right. I doubt very much that a donation from a
> person in Belgium, made to an american organization, can be deductible
> from your belgium income taxes.
> But IANA (I am not accountant) and if your accountants think it is fine...
>
IAAA (I am an accountant), but not in Belgium, and my comment was not
related to Belgium.  Where I believe you're wrong is when you said
that the USA is the only place donations to the WMF are tax
deductible.

I can't speak for Belgium tax law.  And you shouldn't either.

> > "The Wikimedia Foundation has 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in the
> > United States. Donations made from other nations may also be tax
> > deductible. See deductibility of donations for details."
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/About_Wikimedia#Where_does_the_money_come_from.3F
> >
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Deductibility_of_donations
>
> Ya. If you give the donation to some of the chapters, who are tax
> deductible in your nation. Eg, Wikimedia France, eg Wikimedia Deutschland...
>
Is there even a chapter in Canada?

> > Additionally, the tax deduction in the United States is only available
> > to less than one third of taxpayers.  If you take the standard
> > deduction, you don't get a tax break for donations.
>
And a full 18% of people in the US don't even speak English as their
primary language.