Some time ago, I talked about enabling mpl donations to raise money for development. My goal is to promote donations with some reasonably prominent info on the web page, and some emails as well, to raise enough to fund a sprint. This is the blurb I wrote for the donations page: All donations to matplotlib will be used to fund matplotlib development. Our primary goal is to raise enough funds to finance a developer sprint to work on new features, better installers and better documentation. To enable donations, all project admins must opt in. In addition to me, those are Charlie, Darren, Eric, Jeff and Michael and the opt in page is at http://sourceforge.net/project/admin/donations.php?group_id=80706. The donations are set up to go into my paypal account, but if one of you wants to create a dedicated account to handle these, that is fine by me. If anyone has concerns or suggestions, let me know. We get a fair amount of web traffic and maybe we can raise enough money to do something useful. I have no experience with donations so I have no idea whether this is feasible, but it seems like it is worth a shot. JDH
John Hunter wrote: > To enable donations, all project admins must opt in. In addition to > me, those are Charlie, Darren, Eric, Jeff and Michael and the opt in > page is at > http://sourceforge.net/project/admin/donations.php?group_id=80706. > The donations are set up to go into my paypal account, but if one of > you wants to create a dedicated account to handle these, that is fine > by me. I seem to be having some trouble with sourceforge; it is not clear whether my update is going through. If we don't get a confirming email I will try again later. > > If anyone has concerns or suggestions, let me know. We get a fair > amount of web traffic and maybe we can raise enough money to do > something useful. I have no experience with donations so I have no > idea whether this is feasible, but it seems like it is worth a shot. Just a question: how do you handle taxes? Won't you be stuck paying income tax on any donations? Not that I know of any way to get around it short of incorporating as a nonprofit. Eric
On Dec 3, 2007 1:15 PM, Eric Firing <ef...@ha...> wrote: > Just a question: how do you handle taxes? Won't you be stuck paying > income tax on any donations? Not that I know of any way to get around > it short of incorporating as a nonprofit. That is a good question -- does a donation not count as a gift? I think gifts under 10,000 are tax free. JDH
>>short of incorporating as a nonprofit. That's sure a lot of work -- can the PSA host this sort of thing? It would be a whole lot easier to use an existing organization. -CHB -- Christopher Barker, Ph.D. Oceanographer Emergency Response Division NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception Chr...@no...
On Dec 3, 2007 1:52 PM, Christopher Barker <Chr...@no...> wrote: > >>short of incorporating as a nonprofit. > > That's sure a lot of work -- can the PSA host this sort of thing? It > would be a whole lot easier to use an existing organization. Well, noone is proposing setting up an organization, just using sf's existing donation infrastructure. I found this on the question of whether the donations are taxable income: http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2005/02/tax_treatment_o_1.html and some more info here http://www.lclark.edu/~bojack/taxf04xans2.htm It's not an issue I am too concerned about, really. In the unlikely but pleasant event the donations are substantial, I think the costs of the sprint or other uses of the donations for development could be deducted as "expenses for the production of income", eg as in this hypothetical example from the 2nd link: Joe also has a blog and would want to know whether he can deduct the 160ドル he spends on the ISP payment and the (40ドル per month multiplied by 12) 480ドル he spends on his Internet costs. He would also want to know whether he has to report the donations of 150ドル. The issue is whether this is a hobby or a profit-oriented activity. IRC 183(c) defines an activity not engaged in for profit as any activity other than one with respect to which deductions are allowable under IRC 162 (the "ordinary and necessary" business expenses) or under IRC 212 (expenses related to the production of income. There is also a rebuttable presumption in IRC 183(d) that an activity is engaged in for profit if, in three or more of five consecutive years, the activity earns a profit. IRC 212 allows for a deduction of expenses for the production of income. Since 20% of the time Joe spends on the Internet is related to his blogging activity, he will be allowed to deduct 20% of the 480,ドル which is a deduction of 96ドル. The 96ドル for his Internet service the 120ドル he pays his ISP total to costs of 216ドル. Since the 216ドル exceed the donations of 150ドル (which will be includable in gross income since they are online tips and thus includable in gross income, Reg. 1.61-2(a)(1) and the point in Olk v. US that if it isn't given with detached and disinterested generosity but is, instead, for some service, which is what these donations are) then Joe will have a loss of 66ドル.
John Hunter wrote: > On Dec 3, 2007 1:15 PM, Eric Firing <ef...@ha...> wrote: > >> Just a question: how do you handle taxes? Won't you be stuck paying >> income tax on any donations? Not that I know of any way to get around >> it short of incorporating as a nonprofit. > > That is a good question -- does a donation not count as a gift? I > think gifts under 10,000 are tax free. > > JDH It looks like you are right, based on a quick googling; at least individual-to-individual gifts are not reportable as income. It also makes sense; otherwise all the little donation funds that arise to help people under special circumstances would not work. Eric