Can a mail-forwarding service be used as the registered agent for an MN non-profit? In order to incorporate a non-profit in Minnesota under statute 317A, the registered office and agent of the organization must be included in the Articles of Incorporation. Additionally, if the organization is to apply for tax-exempt status under IRS 501(c)(3), the addresses of the trustees of the organization must be given. P.O. Boxes are explicitly disallowed from being used as the registered agent, which leads me to believe that the intent is to have a real entity that can quickly respond to any service of process. Additionally, mail-forwarding services usually assign an address similar to a P.O. box, such as by including a number or suite in the main address. Still though, a mail-forwarding service would be able to get documents to the relevant people. It might not be the best idea to use a mail-forwarding service for receiving service of process (due to the possibility of not being able to access the information easily, and the possible impermanence of the address), but I'm interested as to whether it would be allowed. Is it possible to list the address granted by the forwarding service as the address of the registered agent when filing the incorporation of a non-profit in Minnesota? If so, is it possible that such an address would cause problems when applying for federal tax exemption under 501(c)(3)?
A registered agent's address must generally be a physical address where the registered agent or someone authorized to accept process for a registered agent is physically present. This is because service of certain kinds of process (e.g. subpoenas) must be made by hand delivery in the absence of a court order authorizing an alternative means of serving process. So, a mail forwarding operation's address would not be satisfactory. There are companies such as The Corporation Company that make it their business to serve as professional registered agents of individuals and businesses for a modest fee, and a company like that could be designated instead. A mail forwarding address could potentially pose a problem for the IRS as well although that concern is less absolute. But, the better practice would be to avoid doing so.
The first part is a matter of jurisdiction. I do not believe that simply using a cell phone with an Illinois number will give the Illinois courts jurisdiction, if you're standing in Wisconsin and calling a person in Wisconsin. Also, when you state that the call is recorded for ___ purposes, does that have any bearing on the actual use (e.g. they state it is for quality assurance, but instead they use it for marketing, legal, etc) The use can make a difference. There's an exemption in Illinois law if a business records if: the monitoring is used for the purpose of service quality control of marketing or opinion research or telephone solicitation, the education or training of employees or contractors engaged in marketing or opinion research or telephone solicitation, or internal research related to marketing or opinion research or telephone solicitation If they do not use it for these purposes, presumably the exemption would not apply. In addition: No communication or conversation or any part, portion, or aspect of the communication or conversation made, acquired, or obtained, directly or indirectly, under this exemption (j), may be, directly or indirectly, furnished to any law enforcement officer, agency, or official for any purpose or used in any inquiry or investigation, or used, directly or indirectly, in any administrative, judicial, or other proceeding, or divulged to any third party.
tl;dr It seems like a bad idea. Massachusetts's statutes don't seem to expressly prohibit it—and I didn't find any Massachusetts cases where the registered agent's age was at issue. But registered agents have some fiduciary duties, and the agent has to have the capacity to receive all forms of legal process. Some possible roadblocks are: &quot;minor&quot; is a broad term that courts don't seem to have interpreted in the context of registered agents, and each form of legal process sets its own requirements. Background First, the term &quot;minor&quot; encompasses extremes: a 1 year old doesn't have the capacity to receive and forward legal process to the intended party, but a 16 year old might. Some jurisdictions recognize a &quot;suitable age and discretion&quot; rule, though it hasn't been extended to the context of registered agents. See, e.g., Fed. R. of Civ. Proc. 4(e)(2)(B). Massachusetts isn't one of those jurisdictions. See Mass. R. Civ. Pro. 4(d)(1). In the broader law of agency, minors do have the capacity to serve as &quot;agents&quot;—though their ability to affect the legal relations of the principal is limited. For example, the enforceability of minors' contracts is an issue, and minors can't enter into durable powers of attorney or serve as trustees. See Restatement (Third) of Agency § 3.04. The problems associated with appointing a minor as an agent in Massachusetts are longstanding. In Commonwealth v. O'Leary, 143 Mass. 95 (1886), a mother had her minor daughter enter into a contract of sale for alcohol for the mother's use. While the court recognized the daughter as the mother's agent, it still characterized the transaction as an illegal sale &quot;to&quot; a minor. In the case of a registered agent, the primary action Massachusetts expects of the agent is the receipt and forwarding of the principal's legal correspondence. Courts have found that this creates a fiduciary duty on the registered agent's part. See Int'l Envtl. Mgmt. v. United Corporate Servs., 858 F.3d 1121 (8th Cir. 2017). This makes sense because the service of process satisfies constitutional requirements embodied in the Due Process clause. So in predicting whether a court would extend the &quot;suitable age and discretion&quot; rule to registered agents (or even needs to), it would likely consider that the agent has fiduciary duties, albeit more limited than those of a typical trustee. Second, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 156B § 49 governs corporations and requires that the agent be capable of receiving &quot;all lawful processes in any action or proceeding&quot;. When the agent is an individual (as opposed to a company), that person must be a resident of Massachusetts and have a &quot;business address in the commonwealth&quot;. Mass. Gen. Laws 156C § 5 governs the process for LLCs, and Mass Gen. Laws 156D § 15.07 details it for non-Massachusetts companies. Massachusetts's statutes don't expressly prohibit minors from serving as registered agents, but the agent must have the capacity to receive all forms of lawful process. Thus if some lawful process requires delivery to an adult, the minor wouldn't be capable of receiving it.
The key language to be taken notice of in that code is 'by fraud or deception'. If the property manager has provided reasonable notice of a clear-out, then the code doesn't apply due to lack of fraud or deception. But at the end of the day, just go and check the mail room on a Thursday afternoon and you shouldn't have any problems.
Yes, GDPR applies: you are a data controller established/living in the UK or are offering services to people in the UK you fall under the material scope of the GDPR. The Art 2(2)(c) exemption for “purely personal or household activity” does not apply since you're offering the service to the public. You must consider GDPR compliance here. This is especially important as you are showing personal data to the public. Don't do that unless you have a very good reason, appropriate safeguards, and are clear to users how their information will be shown. On a high level, GDPR compliance involves working on the following questions: For what purpose are you processing personal data? Context: purpose limitation principle per GDPR Art 5(1)(b) What is the legal basis for processing? GDPR Art 6(1) lists the available legal bases. Here, consent, necessity for performance of a contract, or a legitimate interest could be a legal basis. They may have further obligations attached. A legitimate interest requires a balancing test that considers the data subject's rights and freedoms. Consent must fulfil the conditions per Art 7 in order to be valid. What is the minimal data necessary to achieve the purpose? Per the Art 5(1)(c) data minimisation principle, it is illegal to process personal data beyond what is necessary and adequate. You must provide data protection by design and by default per Art 25. Special categories of data per Art 9 such as health data are illegal to process outside of narrow exemptions. You must delete data once it is no longer necessary. What appropriate safeguards and security measures should you apply? Per Art 24 and 25, you are responsible for determining and implementing appropriate measures. This depends a lot on your specific context, so there's no checklist you can apply. Per Art 25(1) you must pseudonymize the processed information if that is compatible with the processing purpose. What further compliance measures do you have to consider? There are additional GDPR and non-GDPR compliance measures. From the GDPR side: Use the answers to these questions to write a privacy policy, including the information that you must provide to data subjects per Art 13. Consider whether you have to maintain a Records of Processing document per Art 30, or if you have to make a Data Protection Impact Assessment per Art 35. If you use third party services, figure out whether they are a joint controller or data processor and apply appropriate safeguards. If you have data processors, ensure that you have a contract in place that covers the items from Art 28(3). If you share data with other controllers (not processors) you need a legal basis for doing so. If you transfer data into a non-EU/EEA country (after 2020: non-UK country) you need a legal basis per Art 44 and have to cover additional items in your privacy policy. Ideally, the target country is covered by an EC adequacy decision per Art 45. For US-based companies, this is the case only when they have self-certified under the Privacy Shield framework. Non-GDPR compliance steps could include cookie consent banners, or showing a VAT ID. How can you prepare for data subject requests? Data subjects have various rights per Arts 15–23, subject to the modalities in Art 12. For example, a data subject could request that their information is erased from your website. The exact rights also depend on the legal basis you selected. You should figure out in advance how to deal with such requests.
Yes If you are in the EU, or your players are in the EU and your service is targeted at some part of (or all of) the EU, then this pretty clearly falls within the scope of the GDPR. Such a service would be collecting data associated with natural persons. At least some of it would be made public along with an online identifier, and other parts would be processed and stored, even if disclosed only in anonymized form. (By the way it is a non-trivial task to anonymize data well enough that it is no longer persona data under the GDPR. But let's suppose yoru methods are good enough.) Under GDPR Article 6 the DC must have a lawful basis for such processing. If the basis is &quot;consent&quot; then the consent must be freely given, whch means giving consent may not be a condition of using the service. Under GDPR Article 13 a notice must be sent to the Data Subject (DS) when the data is collected from the subject, including some 11 items or categories of information about the collection process, the Data Controller (DC), the purposes of processing, the legal basis of processing (which the DC must define), who will receive the data, the data retention period, and various rights of the DS. Such a service must be prepared to respond to data access and data erasure requests, under articles 15-17, and data restriction requests under article 18. It must provide a method for a DS to easily make such requests. Other GDPR provisions may well apply in addition to these, but that is enough to show that such service is very likely to be within the scope of the GDPR, unless none of the DSs are present in the EU or the related market area.
You can do it using a US non-profit, but you need a lawyer We know it can be done in the US using a non-profit because it has been done. For example, the Clay Institute’s Millennium Prize does exactly what you propose: it pays people who solve unsolved math problems. Similarly, the the Everglades Foundation used a prize to get people to come up with new ways to get phosphates out of the water sources. To do what they did, you need to follow their lead, and set up and run a non-profit (aka, 501(c)(3), named after the relevant provision of the tax code). Because non-profits are tax exempt under US tax law, you have to apply to the IRS to become a non-profit. Speaking broadly, the IRS imposes two requirements on non-profits: 1) It must serve a charitable purpose; 2) It must spend a certain percentage of its money every year doing charitable work. To set up a foundation you have to specify the charitable purpose you will serve (“encourage research in mathematics”), and have a plan to do so (“we will award a cash prize to people who solve important unsolved problems”). If the IRS decides your plan is genuine, then they give you a pass on paying taxes. To make sure you are carrying out your charitable plan, the IRS requires you to spend a certain percentage of your money each year on charitable work. (This is called the &quot;distribution requirement.&quot;) Meeting the distribution requirement may be a problem, since you may not award prizes every year. You may be able to get a general idea about how the IRS deals with such situations by searching on line. At some point, however, you will probably need to talk to a lawyer with experience setting up non-profits. (FWIW, it looks to me as if the Clay Institute meets its yearly spending requirement by supporting lots of other activities that count towards the spending requirement.) One other problem that it seems you won’t have involves giving prizes directly to individuals. For obvious reasons, the IRS is generally suspicious of prizes given to individuals, so they impose restrictions. For example, for the winner to avoid taxes, the prizes have to be for previous work. Where to go for more information: USA.gov has a nice overview of the application process here. The IRS has several publications and websites that you might find helpful: here, here, here, and here. These cover everything from the general rules to nuts-and-bolts details about which forms to use. You can read more about the IRS treatment of prizes here and here. Depending on how comfortable you are with financial statements, you may learn about how these non-profits work by reading their 990 forms. The Clay Institute's forms are here.
If a friend uses my home address for his tax return, and he owes the IRS tons of money, will I be liable in any way? Assuming that this is an income tax or sale tax return, rather than a property tax return, generally not. The only case where you could be liable is where you were conspiring to help him evade tax collection somehow, or conspiring to evade state sales or income taxes. For example, suppose that your friend had no connection to your home in your state (Nevada) with no income taxes and has never even set foot in your state, and actually lives in a state with high income taxes (California). But your friend is using your address to falsely claim residency in Nevada with your knowledge and cooperation to avoid paying California income taxes. To make it spicy, let's assume that your friend's state income tax liability would be $400,000 in California, but $0 in Nevada. In that case, you might have felony criminal liability under California's tax evasion statutes (for which you could be extradited to California) for conspiring with your friend to evade his California income tax liability. But if you had no idea of what your friend was up to, and simply agreed to forward mail to him at your address (the way a typical mail drop company does), you would typically have no criminal or civil liability (subject to the &quot;willful blindness&quot; exception to lack of knowledge where you strongly suspect that your friend is up to no good but take a don't ask, don't tell approach). Also normally would it be a problem if he filed a tax return with my address, and I filed a tax return with the same address in the same tax year? No.