🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 17 Nov 1998 19:43:31 GMT, Decklin Foster <decklin@base.org> wrote:
>Jason Clifford <jason@domgen.com> writes:
>
>> If one the other hand an organisation such as people are suggesting is
>> collecting and then paying out on the basis of reward for work then it is
>> no longer a gift but payment for a gift or service. 
>
>It really wouldn't suprise me if the tax laws were so nonsensical. :(
>Say that if I do unslolicited work on some software for the GNU
>project. six months later someone uses it and decides they really like
>it, and donates to the FSF, because it's tax-deductible. What if a
>portion of that money goes to me to compensate for my time?
>
>It would immediately seem that the FSF has to pay a gift tax, but this
>seems unfair for a non-profit charity. What's the real story with the
>tax laws here? IANAL.

If the "gift" (speaking loosely, certainly not in conformance with tax
law anywhere I've lived...) to the FSF is tax deductible, and then does
not attribute tax to the recipient, this effectively represents a way of
moving money to people completely tax-free. 

It is not reasonable to expect to be able to do this.

In contrast, if a "gift" (more in line with tax law definitions) was
sent to a developer (perhaps via a "clearing house"), if the
contribution was not treated as tax deductible, it is not unreasonable
for it to not attribute taxable income in the hands of the recipient. 

I need my ITA... 

-- 
"Once upon a time there was a DOS user who saw Unix, and saw that it was
good. After typing cp on his DOS machine at home, he downloaded GNU's
unix tools ported to DOS and installed them. He rm'd, cp'd, and mv'd
happily for many days, and upon finding elvis, he vi'd and was happy.
After a long day at work (on a Unix box) he came home, started editing
a file, and couldn't figure out why he couldn't suspend vi (w/ ctrl-z)
to do a compile."  -- ewt@tipper.oit.unc.edu (Erik Troan)
cbbrowne@hex.net- <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>