Re: European bank account for donations

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

Em Mon, 2012-03-12 às 12:16 +0100, Dave Neary escreveu:
> Hi,
> 
> On 03/11/2012 04:30 PM, Baptiste Mille-Mathias wrote:
> > 2012/3/10 Germán Póo-Caamaño<gpoo gnome org>:
> >>>
> >>> Does this make sense?
> >>
> >> It might need necessary to figure out the way to do it properly (I think
> >> that is what Baptiste is trying to figure out).  Otherwise, for the tax
> >> office this sort of operation can look as money laundry or tax evasion.
> >>
> > …and I don't want to go to jail. :)
> 
> That might be a bit dramatic...
> 
> Yes, we can receive money from people in Europe, and we can transfer 
> that money to the US organisation with an invoice. And yes, we do need 
> to be careful about falling foul of money laundering laws.
> 
> > We already had several issue due to the location of the Foundation in
> > the past, like the tee-shirt design contest back on November 2010 [1]
> > which excluded inhabitants of some countries due to the embargo
> > decided by the U.S.A. It's perhaps the right time to think to have a
> > legal representation in Europe (and perhaps on other continents).
> 
> It is true that it has not always been easy to deal with the GNOME 
> Foundation, because the foundation understandably worries about its 
> 501(c)3 status and making funds available without a sufficient paper 
> trail on how it will be spent (certainly the Libre Graphics Meeting guys 
> will testify to that) - but the same should go for any subsidiaries 
> working with the foundation. It's certainly much easier if money donated 
> in the EU is spent on EU activities that are easily justifiable.

In that case, the problem becomes that we have two separate entities,
with two separate organisational structures, with separate budgets.
Which is why I wanted the existing US organisation to somehow have a
Euro account. The accounting and budgeting is complicated enough
as-is...

> I disagree that a US organisation conforming to US export regulations is 
> a huge problem, though - IMHO this is a completely separate issue to the 
> money issue we're talking about here.

Cheers