[theforum] idea

Elfur Logadottir elfur at elfur.is
Thu Jun 19 19:56:41 CDT 2003


From: "Peter-Paul Koch"

| About the finances: would it be at all possible to open an Evolt bank
| account and post the account number on the site? I don't have a credit
card
| (though I'll get one soon) so I can't donate. If I'd get an account
number I
| could simply tell my bank to send some money there.

Oh, it's a desired status.
However, that means that we have to file for non-profit something ... and
that's expensive.

It's somewhat of a catch 22
you won't get the donations if you don't have a bank account  --> you won't
get a bank account if you don't have the non-profit status (or any status,
it's some kind of an tax thing) --> you can't get the non-profit status in
the US if you don't have any money --> you don't get the money if you can't
accept donations --> you won't get the donations if you don't have the bank
account ... and on the circle goes.

However, I've been looking into establishing the organisation in Iceland, I
don't think it's that expensive and I think we would be tax-free, but I'm
having a hard time getting any answers to be on the safe side.

We could create a bank account here, we have this feature: Business ID for
foreign organisations, used for the bank account creation thing [1] ... but
that means we need to be an established organisation in any country ... and
if we do that, we basically can get a bank account in any country.

| But the US system of banking is quite different from what I'm used to, so
| maybe there are some problems I'm overlooking.

which is why I think we should be some sort of an International
organisation, with bank accounts both in US and Europe.

On yet another note: you are supposed to be able to send checks via paypal,
but maybe you have to have US bank account for that, again, something I
haven't put the time into examining deeply.

later
elfur

[1] Iceland is trying to establish a tax haven here, alluring foreign geld,
but I don't think we're feasible enough.



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