[mythtv-users] Written proof that we've all been conned about SD

Chris Petersen lists at forevermore.net
Tue Sep 11 08:02:13 UTC 2007


match at ece.utah.edu wrote:
> Chris, are you sure that's true? I believe non-profit corps are allowed to pay 
> wages to their employees, they just can't pay dividends or bonuses to their 
> stockholders and board members.

Employees, yes, directors, no.  Well, they can, but the IRS tends to
frown on it by exponentially raising the tax rates.  I'm also pretty
sure that there's a big difference between "officers" (like a CEO) and
"directors".  It also depends on what type of nonprofit the business is.
 We won't know what SD will become until after we hear back from the
IRS, which could take months.

Like Daniel said, I could theoretically request reduced-rate
compensation for the hours of dev work (i.e. work unrelated to being a
director) I've put into things during this "startup phase" without too
much trouble from the IRS, but only during some nebulous "startup
phase".  I doubt I'll pursue it because honestly I don't want to be seen
as the guy who takes $2000-5000 out of the fund that keeps people's SD
fees as low as possible or pays for an official MythTV/XMLTV booth at
LinuxWorld (that and I honestly have no idea how many hours I've put
into this -- my latest count is "somewhere over 80" and I think that's
probably a gross underestimation).

Now, I could resign from the board in a few months and get hired on as
developer/webmaster for a small retainer fee, but I don't know if it
would be worth a little extra cash to give up my vote to someone who may
not have what it takes to keep SD going.  Or, I might prefer to hire
someone else to do the dev work, so I can have time to actually get back
to working on MythWeb (or mythtv.org or services.mythtv.org or nuvexport
or ...), which I assure you is a LOT more fun than working with the SD
website.

I'd also like to point out that there are some non-boardmembers like
Robert Kulagowski (currently handling almost all of the lineup problem
submissions) and Greg Estabrooks (sysadmin) who should probably be
getting compensated for the time they've put in.

-Chris

P.S. it's "members" not "subscribers" or "users"...  Who knows, maybe
the members *will* get a say in future board elections.  It sort of
depends on what type of federal nonprofit we end up incorporating as.

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