Re: [gentoo-project] Questions for Gentoo Council nominees: Gentoo Foundation - Treasurer Response!

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Wed, Jul 3, 2019 at 7:05 AM Michael Everitt <m.j.everitt@iee.org> wrote:
>
> On 03/07/19 11:47, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > You also need to consider services that we would receive that we
> > currently lack.  After all, Gentoo hasn't spent a dime on CPAs for a
> > long time, but that was hardly a true savings.
> >
> What makes you suggest we need the extra services that would be included by
> an umbrella org? What services are you thinking of?

Well, I'm not the one going on endlessly about how Gentoo doesn't
consult lawyers often enough and that only lawyers can understand the
law...  :)

> What would be the cost
> if the Gentoo Foundation Inc procured these services separately? How does
> this provide a cost saving?

I suspect that the tax savings alone would pay for moving to an
umbrella org.  Savings on a CPA would be on top of that.  At that
point any additional services are basically "free."

However, I suspect that due to economies of scale it will still cost
less to get these other services through an umbrella than to buy them
ourselves.

As you say, though, you could certainly compare the costs, and I'm not
suggesting that this can't be done.

> Can you prove this is therefore "better value
> for money" if despite having less "expenses" as Robin points out, but
> larger net income, and hence larger net fees?

Having more net income might mean more fees, but since fees are a
percentage of income, it is a net benefit all the same.

Sure, if we have $5000 more to work with, we might end up spending an
extra $500 in fees, but that still leaves us off $4500 better than we
are today.

Certainly it would be beneficial to look at actual numbers, but I'm
dubious that these sorts of percentage-based solutions are going to
cost more than what we're spending already.  They also have the
benefit that anytime our income is reduced our overhead is
automatically reduced in kind, as opposed to with doing it ourselves
where the CPA probably costs the same whether we lose half our income
or not.

-- 
Rich