Wedge

(and Motoko's last post does make a good point - why the constant silence? It's ridiculous.)

Does it matter in any way?

It means that they won't be paying taxes on the income generated from Charter memberships and advertising. It was at least enough to cover the hosting costs (which, remember, is on a collection of servers that they own and that reside in a datacenter, which means it ain't cheap)

IRS form 1023 and its instructions (required to file or US 501(c)3 status) are a confusing read.

So the work is progressing very slowly, I admit.

Thing is, there are people in the environment who have successfully applied for 501(c)3 in the past, if I recall... specifically I'm thinking of Thantos when he applied for it for Yourasoft, wouldn't he be able to help?

I am sure he would be able to help.

There are some differences. The situation of Simple Machines is more complicated. More expenses, more domain names, more stuff, more moving parts, more history.

I have no doubt he would, but I get the impression that no-one asked him.More expenses: fair enough, though at the end of the day as far as the form is concerned it should be a total at the bottom of the balance sheet, as it would be for other companies.

More domain names: should be irrelevant. As far as I know, only two domains are held by SM NPO, but that's ultimately a justified organisational expense, and so goes into the above as another line on the balance sheet.

More stuff: certainly. The problem I'm having is that the more I look at it, the more I'm thinking 'more stuff to find excuses for'. This is the part that's an issue: for an organisation that swore it would have more transparency, it isn't doing a good job of this.

More moving parts: wouldn't have thought it would have made that much difference. At the end of the day, if there is a problem with filing the document, either it should be handed over to a suitably qualified accountant to arrange, or someone should be contacting the IRS for advice. Right now I get the impression, however accurately or not, that it's being sat on because it's 'too hard'.

Well, actually, we're not sitting on it. We're working through it. Slowly, admittedly. The Treasurer, the other members of the SM BOD, and the rest of the membership.

The work and discussions are done on boards the members of Simple Machines can see. (I try to keep public everything that can be allowed to be public).

I think I had actually forgotten that yourasoft had filed for 501(c)3 status. So thanks for reminding me.

Angelina, someone must live near a city/university all of which have have offices for the small business administration, they will help with the paperwork. Between the SMA, any number of online foundations and federations for helping open source projects there is no reason at all that the 501c3 was filed.

Yes -- the Software Freedom Law Center, for example, could probably offer us some advice.
It does still take time to put together all the information, and we are working on it.

You are to hilarious :) I needed that laugh.

Must be a very unorganized organization if they still gathering information.

Are you familiar with form 1023?

See for yourself: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1023.pdf

It isn't actually that scary, it's just full of standard legalese.

It is not scary. It is long. And it takes several re-readings to understand it all properly.
There are 12 pages to the form, then 8 associated schedules (some of which we need to fill out, but not all)
Then there will be maybe 5 pages of explanatory attachments, explaining our answers to many of the form's line items.

Starting with every single line item of a year's worth of income and expense, it is necessary to categorize appropriately in order to produce an appropriate statement of revenues and expenses.  Then, it is necessary to place a value on all the server hardware in order to finish filling in the balance sheet. And the value of intangibles like domain names and trademarks.

And make sure you are using the correct dates for your "tax year". So we'll need legal help to complete this task.

It isn't scary.  It just takes time.