By Harry Williams, SHARE President
On December 4, 2017, SHARE held a Special Meeting of the Members to consider resolutions related to the proposed restructuring of SHARE. More than 500 SHARE Members participated in the meeting (the vast majority via proxy) and voted to approve and adopt resolutions that authorize the Board of SHARE to transition our assets and operations from SHARE Inc. to SHARE Association, in order to take advantage of SHARE Association’s tax-exempt status.
With this recent action by the Members of SHARE to authorize the transition, the Board of Directors, working with our legal and financial advisors, has begun the process to transition SHARE’s assets and operations to the new SHARE Association corporate entity. The transition process is expected to be completed by January 2018.
For those looking for a bit more history on this very significant item:
SHARE began as the first-ever enterprise IT user group back in 1955, and in 1970 was incorporated as SHARE Inc., a not-for-profit Delaware-based corporation. While originally tax-exempt, SHARE Inc. has been subject to both state and federal corporate income taxes since the mid 1980’s and has paid many tens of thousands of dollars in these taxes.
Over the last decade, SHARE has expanded its mission to serve the broader enterprise technology community, and as a result, SHARE’s Board of Directors, with the advice of our attorney, determined that SHARE’s broader mission qualifies SHARE for tax-exempt status as a trade association.
In 2016, SHARE’s Board of Directors created a new not-for-profit Delaware corporation “SHARE Association,” which has been granted tax-exempt status under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(6) “business league.” SHARE Association’s initial operations have been to perform various services as a subcontractor for North Carolina A&T’s LEAD-IT contract with the U.S. Department of Labor, and starting in January 2018, all of SHARE’s operations will be as “SHARE Association.”
I'd also like to thank Brian Peterson for his hard work, guiding all of us through the process to become 501(c)(6). Without his diligence and persistence, it would not have been done as quickly or as smoothly. Thank you, Brian.