Questions Continue About The KDE League

OrangeSpyderMan writes "Here is a further piece by Dennis E. Powell ("DEP"), the other is an editorial, submitted simply by "staff". They make interesting reading, and add a lot of info to the story previously reported Of particular insterest is an apparent clarification of the tax status of the league, which, if anything, serves to complicate a little further the true role of the league, as the editorial goes on to explain. Basically the "staff" appear to wonder if it wouldn't have been more productive to give the $170,000 that the League appears to have collected (or be owed) directly to the KDE project."

Comments

Deps original article re: KDE, Israel + Palestine

[Nailer]

Can be seen here.

Andreas Pour of the League Responded

[BRock97]

Just for the record, Andreas Pour has responded to DEP's article with an email that was posted over on Linuxtoday.com. The response can be found here. At least, that is the only place I have read it....

Re:Deps original article re: KDE, Israel + Palesti

[Nailer]

Judging by the constant up and down moderation of that comment as either underrated or offtopic, perhaps some context is in order: that article, which alleges that many KDE project members are somehow antisemitic for not supporting Israel, is why Andreas Pour won't speak to Linux and Main an specifically Denis E Powell - he believes DEP has a clear agenda against the project simply because some of its members don't agree with his political views.

KDE League Clarifications

[robteix]

In an email to the kde-cafe mailing list, Andreas Pour, the chairman of KDE League, explained the situation:

Subject: KDE League Clarifications
From: Andreas Pour
To: KDE Cafe
Date: Today 12:50:40

Hi,

Some of you may have seen the story at
http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=N ews&file=article&sid=249 , which
is entitled "Delaware: KDE League, federally tax-exempt, is reinstated". The
title is to the best of my knowledge a lie, and having investigated only the
tax-exempt part of the "story" (I'm currently too busy to spend much time on
responding to this kind of mud-slinging) most if not all of that appears to be a
lie as well.

Although the story correctly notes that the League has been reinstated in good
standing, it provides a number of new (apparent) lies. I called the Delaware
Office of Corporate Divisions at 302-739-3073 (see
http://www.state.de.us/corp/phoneinfo.htm). Here is what I found out. (BTW, I
would *really* like to know who the "story" supposedly quoted from the Del.
Sect. of State office, so that the accuracy of these quotes, which is extremely
questionable based on my conversations with the corporate division, can be
ascertained, and in the event someone actually made these statements, that they
can be retracted and accurate information provided instead.)

The franchise tax was filed late this year - the recorded filing date is April
2, 2002, whereas the due date is March 1, 2002. B/c the payment was late, the
office did impose a penalty and since the payment did not cover this penalty the
office did suspend the corporation. This was done in error, since it was
explained to me that the State's policy is that not-for-profit corporations do
not need to pay late penalties. When this was discovered yesterday, due to an
inquiry by either the League's law firm or someone else, I don't know, the
penalty was reversed; this meant that the franchise tax had been paid in full
and hence the corporation restored (retroactively) to good standing.

Then I started asking questions about the various other things that are claimed
in the story re: 501(c)(3) status. To answer these questions I was transferred
to Dot Savage, who told me that she made the good standing correction
yesterday. I read her the quotes from the "story", and she insisted (a) that
she had not said those things; (b) that nobody should have said those things;
and (c) that they were factually incorrect. She made clear the obvious, that
Delaware is concerned only with state corporate law and not with federal tax law
(i.e., tax-exempt status). She added their computers have no way to track
federal tax-exempt status and this is of no concern to them, and that certainly
Delaware would not make a statement as to the tax-exempt status of a Delaware
corporation. In particular, she could not understand the leading sentence to
the story, which begins "The KDE League, Inc., filed papers purporting that it
had a federal grant of tax-exempt nonprofit status", since Delaware does not
track these issues and the application does not ask about federal tax status.

The "story" also has the following statement supposedly made by a Delaware
official: "Indeed, because it is tax-exempt, she said, the KDE League had been
listed as 'void' in error in the state's computer system and would now be
reinstated." I asked Dot about this and she admitted that she was the one who
restored the League status (due to the error) but she assured me that tax-exempt
status had nothing to do with it - indeed, as I already mentioned, Delaware does
not concern itself with tax-exempt status. Instead, it was restored b/c the
League is "not-for-profit" (though referred to as a "non-profit" in the
Certificate of Incorporation, but again this is a matter of state corporate law
rather than of federal tax law).

As to the reference to 501(c)(3) in the League's Certificate of Incorporation,
Article Eight, on page 3, provides:

"Upon the dissolution of the corporation or the winding up of its affairs, the
assets of the corporation shall be distributed exclusively for charitable or
educational purposes or to organizations which are then exempt from federal tax
under Section 501(c)(3) or Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code of
1986."

While IIRC such a provision is *required* for a tax-exempt organization, having
such a provision by no means makes an organization tax-exempt; we simply felt it
a sensible approach to distributing assets if the League were dissolved. Tax
exemption requires forms to be filed with the IRS requesting that status, and
AFAIK such forms have never been filed on behalf of the League, and I certainly
did not request anyone to file them. It is true that tax exemption was
considered, in fact quite some time was spent on deciding this issue, but in the
end it was decided in conjunction with the League's lawyers not to seek such
status.

As to everything else, as I noted, I am doing an interview for Ofb.biz and I
will address them then, but currently I have other pressing projects on my to-do
list.

Regards,

Andreas Pour

Kde-cafe mailing list - Kde-cafe@ofb.biz
http://ofb.biz/lists/listinfo.cg i/kde-cafe

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