[Board] OSGeo received its 501(c)(4) tax exempt status from the IRS

[Cameron Shorter]

This is huge news, and a credit to Daniel for his dedication. I suggest 
we put out a press release on the topic.

  Jeff, did you start up a wiki location for collaboratively editing 
press releases?

I suggest the release should cover:

=OSGeo has been granted Non-Profit status=

After a seven year application period, the OSGeo Foundation has been 
granted 501(c)(4) text exempt status from the United States Internal 
Revenue Service (IRS)! This status has been retroactively applied back 
to the founding of the the OSGeo-Foundation, which means we are not due 
for a retrospective tax bill.

The 501(c)(4) status is slightly different to the 501(c)(6) status that 
OSGeo originally applied for which was rejected. The main differences 
are ...

This means that OSGeo can do: ...

A huge thanks goes to Daniel Morissette (and ...) who have been the main 
drivers behind pushing this through.

On 13/09/13 05:23, Jeff McKenna wrote:
> Thanks Daniel, this is wonderful news!
>
> I also took the time this morning to send a message to the Foundations
> list to thank Peter Tanner for the motivation for us to switch our
> application to (c)(4), as his OpenNTF foundation did successfully.
>
> This whole process really does hit home the fact that, we are in fact
> (as apparently the IRS views us as) doing good for the "social welfare"
> of the community.
>
> I also hope our experience helps other foundations as well.  So let's
> all share this news in our networks.
>
> Thank you Daniel, for being a champion for this.  Our community and
> future events will benefit from this for years to come.
>
> -jeff
>
>
>
> On 2013-09-11 10:38 PM, Daniel Morissette wrote:
>> OSGeo Board and members
>>
>> I am extremely pleased to inform you that OSGeo just received a
>> determination letter from the IRS confirming its 501(c)(4) tax exempt
>> status. Finally, after over 7 years of waiting this saga is over and we
>> can move on to more interesting stuff!
>>
>> The letter also says "Effective date of Exemption: November 14, 2005",
>> so if I read that correctly that clears any potential tax implications
>> for past years of operations. We'll still have some filing to do to
>> clean things up (next on my plate), but at least the tax exempt status
>> is retroactive to day one of the creation of the Foundation.
>>
>> Copy of the letter attached. Note that I believe we can ignore the
>> second page which relates to the original request for 501c3 status which
>> we changed to 501c4 but just in case I have asked the attorney to
>> confirm that we can safely ignore it.
>>
>> Daniel (OSGeo Treasurer)
>>
>>
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