[XWARN] XWARN tax-exempt application and concerns

[Jason Bowman]

Fellow XWARN'ers

Earlier this week, I mailed our application for tax-exempt status to the
IRS.  It was delivered on Thursday.  I suspect they'll reach out for
clarifying information once they get to our application.  The good news
about reduced IRS budgets is that you personally are less likely to get
audited.  The bad news is that tax-exempt applications are probably being
processed slower as well.  And thanks to a change in the regulations at the
end of 2017, the processing fee was only $600 instead of $850.

This brings me to more serious points.

When I discussed doing this in front of the membership at least 2 or 3
times, I warned everyone that we will have real legal and financial
responsibilities with not only the IRS but also the State of Ohio.  While I
and our Treasurer, Steve Mackey, will take care of these responsibilities
in the near future, we aren't going to take care of them forever.  Everyone
who voted to proceed with seeking tax-exempt status needs to be ready to
stand up and take over these responsibilities.  If we ever get to the point
where we have difficulty fulfilling these obligations, there are fines, and
the IRS and/or State of Ohio will revoke our tax-exempt status or worse.
And, if we ever get to the point where we need to dissolve the Ohio
domestic non-profit corporation, our hands will be somewhat tied by Ohio
law in how we deal with the transfer (or sale) of assets -- namely the
trailer, everything in the trailer, and the repeaters -- back to an
association or other non-profits.

And why am sounding all doom and gloom?  I saw a steep drop in membership
from 2016 to 2017 that never recovered in 2018 when completing the
financials for the tax-exempt application.  One theory is that the monthly
meetings are just plain boring.  That's been a concern of mine for a while
now.  They've become all business and no learning or interesting programs.
And lately the business aspect doesn't change much from meeting to
meeting.  I even brought in something to talk about a few meetings ago
knowing we'd not likely have a program that night, and one member suggested
that I just hold off until more members are present not realizing that more
members will never be present until we make the meetings interesting again.

So there you have it.  I would highly encourage members to get with the
Vice President on ideas for programs for the monthly meetings and even
prepare a presentation on your own and we'll schedule it into the
meetings.  Or maybe you'll want to run for Vice President this November if
you want to take this on directly.  I will continue to bring something just
in case, but I really don't have the time to do the job justice.  And, if
you have a better theory as to why membership has been declining, please
let the officers know.

Signed, the XWARN Secretary.

Jason Bowman
m: 937-260-2870
WG8B
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