Re: Constitutional Amendment GR: Handling assets for the project
On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 05:48:32PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 01:08:11AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> > I think we are beginning to split hairs. While in some
> > jurisdiction perhaps Debian is a legal entity, but still, in order to
> > own assets, I am pretty sure work needs to be done , papers filed,
> > taxes assessed, or dispensatoion obtained -- which is a lot of work
> > which has not been done. For a global project, this is ibviously
> > untenable:
>
> I don't think that's true either -- certainly in setting up LCA 2002,
> all we needed to do in order to establish a bank account was provide
> some minutes of a meeting we'd had to the bank, and proof of identity
> for the people we wanted to be able to sign cheques.
Similar things are possible everywhere. However, if you do not
incorporate the entity for which you hold money, it usually means that
the bank will, from a legal point of view, consider the account to be a
personal bank account of the people that happen to be listed as able to
sign cheques. In other words, if there ever happens to be a deficit of
sorts (because of bad accounting, or the organization being sued and not
having enough money to pay the legal costs, or whatnot), the bank will
collect the missing money from these people personally, rather than from
the organization you're setting up a bank account for.
While there is nothing wrong with that in principle, I wouldn't go ahead
and do this for every random organization without double-checking that
this is actually what you want.
> > "In most jurisdictions around the world, the Debian project is
> > not in a position to directly hold funds or other
> > property. Therefore ....."
>
> So, I don't think this is true either -- we could fill out the paperwork
> in all those jurisdictions fairly easily,
Were we to do that, then we would end up in a position to hold such
funds. Since we haven't yet done that, however, the above statement *is*
true.
[...]
--
Fun will now commence
-- Seven Of Nine, "Ashes to Ashes", stardate 53679.4
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