response 26 of 54:

May 9 05:08 UTC 1998

501(h)whatever is a declaration that you will be bound by existing
law on influencing legislation. If you don't elect this option, the
limit is "no significant influence", which it would be up to examiners
to define. If you elect, the amounts are spelled out. It is a *crazy* law
that species the legal requirements but which does not apply unless you
fill out an application to have it apply. I think other meant that
the classifications can be elected independently. Not quite, though,
as you must be a 501(c)x to elect 501(h)y.

response 28 of 54:

May 11 19:28 UTC 1998

Yup.  501(h) and 501(c)3 aren't alternatives.  They are just different
sections of the tax code.  Some sections describe different kinds of tax
exempt organizations, but 501(h) isn't a different kind of organization.  It's
an alternative set of rules that you can choose to have your political
involvement evaluated by, if you like.

Given the explanation, I doubt if the IRS will care if we check yes or no on
this question.  I think everything that the explanation allows is legal with
in the law for 501(c)3 status.  If it isn't, I don't think we would want
501(c)3 status.  I also don't want anyone reading this, be it the IRS or users
of Grex, to imagine that we are going to limit discussions of legislation on
Grex, or that Cyberspace Communications is *completely* barred from having
opinions on legislation.  I want it to be absolutely clear that we are
reserving the right to do everything allowed by the law.  So I deliberately
skated close to the edge here.  It is more important to be absolutely clear
on what Grex wants to do here than it is to get this application accepted on
the first submission.

So the ambiguity here is whether the question about attempting to influence
legislation means "in any way at all" or "in any way not allowed for by the
501(c)3 law".  If I answer the second interpretation "no" then in the eyes
of someone reading with the first interpretation, I could be barring us from
things we don't need to be barred from.  I think the correct thing is to
interpret the question broadly and stake out our ground explicitly, in a form
that can not be easily misinterpreted.

response 30 of 54:

May 13 21:14 UTC 1998

I agree, jan.

response 32 of 54:

May 21 16:28 UTC 1998

The only part that had non-trivial changes is attachment 9, which has been
corrected to take into account Rane's statement that institutional members
are real members.  Here's the new version:
====================================
Attachment Number 9
Cyberspace Communications, Inc. (EID 38-2998091)
 Form 1023, Part II,  Item 11:

Question:
a.  Describe the organization's membership requirements and attach a
    schedule of membership fees and dues.

b.  Describe the organizations present  and proposed efforts to attract
    members and attach a copy of any descriptive literature or promotional
    material used for this purpose.

c.  What benefits do (or will) the members receive in exchange for their
    payments?

Response:
a.  Membership costs $6 a month, or $60 a year.  Members must be individuals.
    Members are also asked to provide some form of ID, which is not otherwise
    required from our users.

b.  The web pages and login screens on Grex contain notices asking users to
    consider becoming members.  Membership is often mentioned in our public
    discussion forums, especially those relating to the administration of
    the system.  The following text is displayed to users who ask for more

    information on-line:

>Thanks for asking how to support Grex.  You don't have to pay to use Grex,

>but users' donations pay all the bills.  If users don't support Grex, it 
>will go away.  Please support this valuable community resource.
>
>The best way to support Grex is to become a member.  Members get to:
>  - vote in Grex elections (if you've paid for three months or more)
>  - receive the 'Wizard in Training' manual free (again with 3 months)
>  - use our internet link.
>
>Organizations may also support Grex and be recognized as Institutional 
>members.  Institutional members have the same privileges as regular 
>members, except the right to vote.
>
>The minimum membership dues donation - Individual or Institutional - is 
>$6/month or $60/year (US currency). Send a personal check or enclose a copy

>of other ID with your dues.  Other donations at any time from members or 
>non-members are welcome.  Write to 'aruba' for more info.  Send cash, 
>checks or money orders to:
>
>Cyberspace Communications Inc
>P.O. Box 4432
>Ann Arbor, MI 48106-4432

    Cyberspace Communications occasionally circulates fliers and places
    advertisements in various publications, but these are primarily designed
    to attract users to the system, not to win new members.

c.  Individual members receive the right to vote in board elections and run
    for board positions.  They may call for and vote in referenda.

    Institutional members do not have the right to vote.

    All members may receive, if they like, a copy of a 23-page photocopied
    user manual.  This is also available to all users for our cost of one
    dollar.

    Members do not receive any special privileges in connecting to Grex
    or using any services on Grex itself.  However, they do have have
    expanded privileges in connecting from Grex to other computers on
    the Internet.  The most important Internet services, E-mail and
    web browsing, are free to all Grex users, but only members can use
    their Grex accounts to do such things as use a 'telnet' program
    to log into another system on the net, or use an 'ftp' program to
    transfer files to and from other systems on the net, or use an 'irc'
    program to access the Internet Relay Chat.  These are services that
    we cannot offer to thousands of anonymous users because we lack
    the resources to support them, and, in some cases, because they
    would enable hackers to use our system as a safe base for attacking
    other systems on the Internet.  Since these services are not of much
    interest to most people and are provided with much better quality
    by even the least expensive commercial Internet service providers,
    they do not seem to be a large incentive for most of our members.

response 34 of 54:

May 21 20:24 UTC 1998

The information on income from "money, goods and services" is independent
of what you do with those. If you sell goods, purchased or donated, that
is money income. The value of goods donated is only of interest to the
donor, by the way (for tax purposes). We are prohibited by law from
setting any value on donated goods (or property). 

response 36 of 54:

May 21 21:52 UTC 1998

Oops.  I should delete the "members must be individuals." sentence from part
(a).

response 38 of 54:

May 21 22:01 UTC 1998

On thing I noticed as I typed the form in is that because I check No on
Part II, line 4 I didn't have to fill out question 6 and 7.  The upshot of
this is that I think our 501(c)3 status may after all be retroactive to the
founding of Grex if that status is granted.

response 40 of 54:

May 22 08:23 UTC 1998

re #39   What she said.

response 42 of 54:

May 23 18:32 UTC 1998

I haven't done an ascii text version of the whole thing, just the
portions posted here.  I decided maintaining a laser printable version,
an HTML version, and an ASCII version would be too much work.

response 44 of 54:

May 24 15:31 UTC 1998

Thanks, Jan.  Incredible work!

response 46 of 54:

May 26 23:50 UTC 1998

Regarding the Web-readable version:

Perhaps Part I should be entitled "Identification ..."?

ZIP Code is separated with a hyphen.

Part III #2: "one of the expections" should probably read "one of the
exceptions"  :-)  I don't think they are referring to spitting!

further question:  why does (b) there not apply to us?

OK, I'm too tired to read any more, but it really does look VERY nice, despite
my quibles.  Any update on when it was or will be sent?

response 48 of 54:

May 28 21:16 UTC 1998

Re ZIP Code: Oh.

*shrug*