[UgaBYTES] No good news abour registration process of BCTN : Imet the Director General this morning !

Fri Jun 6 12:43:59 GMT 2008

Dear Jean Paul,

Michael has raised a very important point about defining what a 
not-for-profit is.

It is important to note that in India, when an organisation registers as a 
Society (registered under the Societies Registration Act - a legacy of the 
British Colonial Laws), the assumption is that none of the founding members 
or members of the "Society" will "profit" from the activities. This has been 
further clearly defined by the Income Tax authorities as to what this would 
mean. If the incomes of the "Society" is an amount X, the organisation must 
utilise at least 75% of the proceeds for exactly the same purposes for which 
the incomes were generated, and only permits a carry forward of 25% to the 
next financial year, thus ensuring that no substantial surpluses are 
created. There are special tax exemptions for the donors (individual or 
organisations contributing to the incomes) as well as for the "Society" for 
which specific applications are made.

Any incomes generated from services/ products/ goods as a part of the 
organisational livelihoods promotion activities are also treated as incomes 
and have to be utilised for the sole purposes of furthering the objectives 
of the "Society". This again is with the idea that people/ individuals do 
not earn profit, and also not take advantage of the tax breaks that are 
given.

Another point to note is that many schools, colleges and educational/ 
capacity building institutions are registered as "Society" under the above 
act, and are responsible to fulfill all the regulations covered under the 
Societies Registration Act.

Please also note that in India, you can also register philanthropic 
organisations under the Trust Act or Non-profit Company (under the Section 
25 of the Companies Registration Act). Thus there are different routes that 
may be available.

Please explore if there are any other options that are also available in 
your country. Usually, Chartered Accountants of existing and respected large 
civil society organisations can provide technical assistance and 
clarifications.

Hope this is helpful.

Jaya

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com>
To: <ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org>
Cc: "Jim Sayre" <jsayre at clasbc.net>; "'Peter Royce'" <proyce at vcn.bc.ca>
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2008 1:51 AM
Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] No good news abour registration process of BCTN : 
Imet the Director General this morning !

Hi Jean Paul,

I'm not sure if it will be of any assistance but the Vancouver (Canada)
Community Network (VCN) (where I'm on the Board) ran into the same problem
about 10 years ago and won a quite famous court case which determined that
VCN was in fact a not-for-profit even though it did charge for some of its
services.

I'll copy this to the current VCN President Jim Sayre (a lawyer) and Peter
Royce (who was VCN co-ordinator at the time) if you have an interest in
getting more information on what happened in the Canadian circumstance.

Best,

MG

-----Original Message-----
From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
[mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of NKURUNZIZA Jean
Paul
Sent: June 5, 2008 4:31 AM
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
Subject: [UgaBYTES] No good news abour registration process of BCTN : I met
the Director General this morning !
Importance: High

Hello,

I met this morning the Director General of the Ministry of Interior today
morning. The bad thing is that the Advicer in charge of our file had
attached a very little notice on our file saying that : BCTN is not a non
profit organization. He wrote this because in our text, we described some
services generally offered by telecenter ( Internet access, photocopy,
Library, community radio, ...). As he saw that offered services are not
free, them he argued that BCTN is not non profit. But I explained that the
major role of the network is essentially to support telecenter initiatives
by capacity buildings, lobbying and content for Development, etc... as it is
clearly stated in our objectives. I also explained that low fees are paid to
telecenters for their sustainability issues. At the end, he told me to
contact back the Advicer and explain him. This because the Director General
can't go against technical advices from his colleague. So, we scheduled the
meeting with the Advicer tomorrow as he was not in his office today. It
looks like that we will be obliged to modify our  constitution text and then
begin all the registration process again if the Advicer doesn't understand.

-- 
NKURUNZIZA Jean Paul
Président du Réseau des Télécentres Communautaires  du Burundi Secrétaire
Général de BYTC B.P 7031 BUJUMBURA BURUNDI
Tél: 00257 22 21 96 45
Tél Mob : 00257 76 60 49 46/00257 79 981 459
Fax : 00257 212485 ou 00257 222147
E.Mail : nkurunziza at bytc.bi ou
         jnkurunz at hotmail.com
Site web : http://www.bytc.bi

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