[ANSTHRLD] Targes and Tangents

Faelan Caimbeul faelancaimbeul at gmail.com
Mon Jun 25 17:03:05 PDT 2007


Just my two cents, being a manager for a non-profit myself. First, a
question. I missed something, what documents were requested?

Now, for my two cents. I work with a lot of non-profits in Dallas that deal
with a lot of sensitive information. Our only reporting requirements are
financials and board minutes. These have to be kept on record and are
available to the public by law, by request. It's the same for all
non-profits. This means the BOD minutes are available to the public, which I
believe they are.

Now, what's not available. Any information on our clients, our supporters
(other than what's in our financials), medical data of ANY KIND (this falls
under HIPPA), criminal records, legal procedings our employees and/or
clients are involved in, criminal and civil (we deal with domestic violence
shelters, among other things), etc. . . .  There's a LOT of things that are
we don't give out, in fact, for many legal and moral reasons, CAN'T.

Now while I personally would like to see the heraldic comments public,
mostly because I tend to agree with the idea that it would cause many NOT to
contribute their two cents, I can't see any legal reason they MUST be
public. The reason I like the idea of less comments is that it would speed
up the process by making people think twice about erroneous comments knowing
that anyone could read them and that person's odds of looking like a fool
increase exponentially. I think that would improve the overall quality of
comments and actually help those of us junior types learn by restricting the
commentors (through pier pressure) to the ones that really know what they're
talking about.

Just my two cents.
Faelan

On 6/25/07, Tim McDaniel <tmcd at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 25 Jun 2007, radei at moscowmail.com <heralds at lists.ansteorra.org>
> wrote:
> > Restricted??  NO PART of a 501-c3 may be barred from public view on
> > demand.
> ...
> > I speak from experience as a former office<at all levels, treasurer,
> > VP,President,Ect> of several "501-c3"s .  All documents are public
> > by law.
>
> I repeat my request: please provide a precise citation of the
> applicable law.
>
> <
> http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00000501----000-.html
> >
> appears to be the appropriate statute (26 USC 501), and Part I
> contains more restrictions
> (<
> http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sup_01_26_10_A_20_1_30_F_40_I.html
> >).
> But I don't see anything about record requirements.
>
> <http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/index.html> is the head of
> the official IRS Web pages for charities, including 501(c)3s.  There's
> a lot of information there, including Exemption Requirements at
> <http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=96099,00.html>
> and (under "Life Cycle of a Public Charity")
> * Jeopardizing Exemption
>    <http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=123299,00.html>
>    This prohibits lobbying, inurement, substantial unrelated income,
>    and requires annual filing, but not about disclosure.
> * Substantiation and Disclosure
>    <http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=123211,00.html>
>    This is about contributions, not anything else.
> * Public Disclosure Requirements
>    <http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=96430,00.html>
>    They require public access only to *tax-related* documents: the
>    org's exemption application and annual tax returns.  Also note
>        An exempt organization is not required to disclose Schedule K-1
>        of Form 1065 or Schedule A of Form 990-BL. With the exception of
>        private foundations, an exempt organization is not required to
>        disclose the name and address of any contributor to the
>        organization.
> * Contributors' Identities Not Subject to Disclosure
>    Well, except for political orgs above a dollar limit.
>    <http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=135015,00.html>
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)> lists some 501(c)3 organization.
> It would surprise me if all of their records were publicly visible,
> such as treatment records for Planned Parenthood.
>
> I was around for The SCA Milpitas Meltdown of 1994.  The final act was
> the 17 named plaintiffs filing for a writ in a California court
> demanding access to all books of accounts, which the Board had refused
> them access to.  The case went on for several months before the judge
> awarded the plaintiffs a slam-dunk judgment (that is, awarding costs
> to them).  However, in that time at least two of the plaintiffs had
> lost their house due to their share of the expenses.  I expect that if
> 501(c)3 records were always public, that one of the lawyers would have
> pointed out the Federal implications of the Board denying them access,
> and that it would have short-circuited the case.  As I recall, the tax
> documents were the only ones provided on demand, but I don't have a
> citation.
>
> (The SCA By-Laws, Article X, page 6
> <http://www.sca.org/docs/govdocs.pdf>, sets record access policies.)
>
> Dannet Lincoln
> --
> Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com
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>



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