Klarinet Archive - Posting 000938.txt from 1998/10

From: "Mark Charette" <charette@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] re: Klarinet Archive availability
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 18:35:19 -0400

>Seems to me you might be starting to milk it, Mark. Appealing for
>donations totalling $5000 for making the list available and maintaining a
>useful online clarinet resource seemed fair to me, but taking the excess
>$500-1000 or whatever and buying a Rom-burner that would benefit few others
>than your commercial business is a bit much, in my humble opinion.

What other commercial business? If you think Sneezy.org makes money - guess
again. If you think that my business uses the machinery I'm putting together
for Sneezy.org - guess again.

I will be publishing how much has been spent on the server and accessories.
No - I won't break it down to the penny (I don't need the "but _I_ could
have bought it cheaper at XYZ company" comments that would inevitably crop
up) but I will put up the total. It will agree with my books.

I _had_ to form Sneezy.org for tax purposes or all the money gathered for a
new server would have been taxable. As it is, I can deduct the cost of the
machinery - which will pretty much equal the donations.

The company I work for _donates_ the line, and can not write it off. I
cannot comingle the equipment purchased for Sneezy.org with MIKA Systems',
or the tax gods will come and take my 2nd born (they've already got the
first one).

Donating the money to a non-501 (c ) organization will mean that the tax
gods will get a bite out of it, so just giving away the money doesn't work
(it's much harder to give money away without consequence than some of you
seem to think). The idea of giving CDROMs away to schools seems pretty
good - I've got to think about it a while: how will I do it next year? I'd
_like_ to be able to buy the few supplies I need on a yearly basis without
dipping into my pocket _too_ much - a couple of hundred a year is fine, but
more than that gets hard. If selling a few CDROMs at near cost can make
enough money to provide some free for schools - that'd be great!

Mark Charette@-----.org

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