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by geogriffin
2398 days ago
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Well, reading the IRS guidelines on what qualifies as UBI, it seems like it might fall under that category, but I'm also not an expert, which is why I'm asking for a more qualified opinion. However, assuming it's UBI, it's pretty clear to me that having a large percentage of their income this year being UBI would be a red flag to the IRS. |
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1. It is trade or business - sure, it's trade as in sale, so that matches.
2. It is regularly carried on - not really, there's only one .org domain so one can't regularly sell it.
3. It is not substantially related to furthering the exempt purpose of the organization - that one would be the toughest to prove, the purpose of the organization is "to promote the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world". Of course you can think that selling .org to a particular company may not benefit the world, but surely it's just your opinion, you can't prove that it has no relation to the original mission.
Also, using taxation as a tool in policy disagreements is a really bad idea. It is tempting to say "ah, so do this bad thing so we retaliate against you by attacking your tax status" but that's not what tax status is for. If it's a non-profit, it remains a non-profit even after it does bad thing, and whether it is a non-profit or not should not depend on whether we like what they're doing. Tax status is not a form of punishment or reward, at least it shouldn't be.