response 41 of 127:

Jul 21 00:58 UTC 1998

   Jan and Mark: I am blown away by this.  It makes one hell of a
neat birthday present!

response 43 of 127:

Jul 21 02:25 UTC 1998

   It isn't, and I don't think anyone would try to make the
assertion that it is.
   However, jsut as school's have things like play areas, so
can Grex.

response 45 of 127:

Jul 21 04:09 UTC 1998

I trie warn you,

response 47 of 127:

Jul 21 04:43 UTC 1998

if it doesn't, i propose we take up a collection to pay marcus to do grex the
service of resurrecting mnet.  or steve.  whoever is the most willing and able
to handle the security stuff necessary for the job.

response 49 of 127:

Jul 21 18:23 UTC 1998

Aaron:  If the IRS recognized our status in a non-retroactive way it would
*never* be as of the date of their letter of recognition.  It would be as of
the date when the application was postmarked, or, if there wasn't a
recognizable postmark, as of the date that it was received by the IRS office.

As it happens, there is a whole page of the application form that is all about
determining when the status starts.  You check the one that you think applies
to you.  The last one on the list is for non-retroactive status, as described
in the previous paragraph.  We didn't check that one.  What I checked was the
second-to-last one, the "good faith" exception to the normal filing time
limits, which I felt we qualified for.  This does give retroactive status.
Apparantly the IRS thought so to, since they accepted the application as
filed, without amendments.

response 51 of 127:

Jul 21 19:06 UTC 1998

I have no ambitions for Cyberspace Communications to do anything better that
what it is already doing - which I consider pretty darn good.  If I thought
that tax-exempt status would force us to do anything different than we are
doing now, then I wouldn't have applied for it.  If you look at our
application (I forget the URL, but if you follow the "governance" link on
our home page, you'll find it), you'll see that it includes mention of party,
and explicitly says that a lot of the usage of the system is social rather
than educational in nature.  I think there is no question that such activity
is fine with the IRS.  If it wasn't we'd ditch the tax-exempt status, not
party.

It may well be that there are better things that Grex could and should be
doing.  I'd like to hear what kinds of things you have in mind.  Not having
heard your ideas, I certainly don't disagree with them.  All I disagree with
is that we must do these unspecified things *because* of the tax-exempt
status.  The only things we have to do *because* of the tax-exempt status are
to issue proper receipts and returns, and continue doing what we said we
were doing in our application (or inform the IRS if we change).

Lots of Arbornet people have been telling us that we should get tax-exempt
status.  Anywhere else in the world, this advice would be considered insane.
We are engaged in the kind of service that our government, in its infinite
wisdom, has chosen to consider tax-exempt.  Why shouldn't we ask them to
recognize that status?

Only because of Arbornet.  For reasons unique to Arbornet (including some
good reasons), tax-exempt status has become a club that people use to hit each
other over the head with for years now.  The concern has always be that, if
Grex gets tax-exempt status, then people who have a stake in that fight on
Arbornet would feel they have to carry it over to Grex, so people can't say,
"well, Grex has 501(c)3 and they don't worry about any of this."  The last
thing that we want is to be drawn into the biggest mud fight in M-Net
history.  Aaron, when you declare that we have to make (unspecified) changes
because we have tax-exempt status, you are setting off lots of alarms in
lots of people's heads.  I have to response that I reject *any* suggestion
that our policies should be dictated by our 501(c)(3) status.  That status
is something that the government gives us in recognition of what we are
doing.  We'll happily take it, and use it to encourage donations to the
system, but we will not be steered by it.  We will be steered by the
mission set forth in our articles of incorporation, and by the will of
our users.  We are committed to an ideal, not to tax-exempt status.

I have no idea if Arbornet's tax-exempt status is in order or not.  I don't
think Grex's tax-exempt status is relevant to that issue.  Grex is a different
organization, with different articles of incorporation, different bylaws,
and different ways of raising money.  It's application for tax-exempt status
was done on a different basis.

Anyway, if you'd like to see changes in Grex's mission, I'd be interested in
hearing what you have in mind, and why you think they would be more suitably
performed by us than by some new organization specifically chartered to do
that (e.g., it might be something that has good synergy with what we already
do).  I just cannot agree that we should change what we are doing simply
*because* the IRS decided that what we are doing is tax-exempt.  That's just
weird.

response 53 of 127:

Jul 21 19:41 UTC 1998

Re #40 (Misti).  Among other things, grex is doing a fine job of putting
people in touch with each other.  It also put Tim Ryan in touch with us at
Kiwanis, resulting in several donated 386s which will be sold and the money
used to support local non-profit groups performing services that the
government would probably have done more expensively and inefficiently (since
it would not have had volunteer labor).  It put me in touch with a Bosnian
refugee in need of a translation (thanks Larry).  It got Kent Nassen in
helping with computers at Kiwanis, and Richard Pirie with software.  It got
us a bit of recycled lumber that might have gone to the dump otherwise.   We
traded or acquired otehr computer equipment (omni, and a classifieds ad). 
It found a grand piano in need of tuning for a friend in need of practice.
The computer aspect of grex is only one aspect, for many of us the chance to
communicate and meet other people is primary.

response 55 of 127:

Jul 22 17:00 UTC 1998

Thank you, Jan for making the points I kept skipping around.  ;)

You're absolutely right, Sindi.  I think we'd have to do extensive interviewing
of many, many Grexers to make a comprehensive list of all the good a system
like this does every day.  ;)

response 57 of 127:

Jul 22 18:31 UTC 1998

That's an interesting idea... ;)

response 61 of 127:

Jul 23 22:20 UTC 1998

This is good news.  Wonder if its retroactive.  Im thinking of
whoever it was that bought that 10-year membership.  Guess they
have bought that a month too soon, and now they can't deduct it
whereas if they'd waited, they could have.

Might be reasonable to offer lifetime memberships now, say for
the same price as a ten-year, or $600?

response 63 of 127:

Jul 24 03:28 UTC 1998

I'd have to say that Grex is actually putting money into Aaron's pocket. 
  We are providing all these services that he would otherwise be taxed 
for.  The Govt certainly can't provide them without taxes.  Maybe since 
we are giving (a small) amount of money to Aaron every year he should 
instead allow us to dictate to him what are acceptable lifestyles.

Now if the Govt. were writing us a check for $12,000 it would be harder 
to make this argument, but since we have converted from paying no taxes 
on our pitiful income to paying no taxes, and converted from filtering 
money through an inefficient Govt. to sending it directly to us where we 
are frankly astoundingly efficient with it I don't see how we could make 
any other argument than above.

response 65 of 127:

Jul 24 15:45 UTC 1998

Re resp:61: (1) I've seen no reason to believe that this status isn't
retroactive. (2) Non-retroactive status would be granted as of the date
the IRS received our application.  I do have record of that date
someplace, but the fact that they didn't mention it in their
determination letter is another reason to believe it is retroactive. 
Thus, in either case, the person who made the $600 donation is in the
right time period to make it tax-deductable.  The question remaining is
whether Grex memberships are fully tax deductable.  My opinion that they
are, but we still need to research this further.