Yang Xiong – XUAS Matters

Officers Meeting – April 15, 2020

by Yang Xiong April 18, 2020 No Comments

A conference call was held on April 15, 2020. Officers present: President Tsav Lis Xyooj, Vice President Nkag Neeb Xyooj, Secretary Xaiv Phiab Xyooj, and Treasurer Suav Yaaj Xyooj.

Suav Yaaj covered the recent meeting that he had with former President Nhiabee Xiong, former Vice President May Cha, Asst. Secretary Luexa Xiong, and Board Member Peter Phiab Xiong. The following were agreed upon:

We will start filing tax returns beginning with 2016. It is Form 199 enotice.
We will proceed to renew SI-100 form. At the start of the next administration, the form will need to be amended to reflect the new officers.
The discussion on whether to proceed with getting legal nonprofit status remains on hold for the May 15, 2020 conference call.
There is a possibility of getting tax exempted in California if we file Form 3500. However, it may not even make a difference since we are not earning more than $50,000 per year for XUAS.

Discussions

Clarifying What Needs to be Done Regarding Overdue Tax Returns

by Yang Xiong April 12, 2020 No Comments

On April 11, 2020, at 6 PM, the following individuals held a conference call to continue the discussion on XUAS’ overdue tax returns: Nhiabee Xiong, May Cha-Xiong, Peter Phia Xiong, Luexa Xiong, and Yang Xiong.

First, we reviewed May’s report on the information she gathered from talking to the Franchise Tax Board. The items covered are as follows:

We have the option of filing an extension if we need one for the current tax year. As for the other years (2016, 2017, and 2018), they have already been deemed late. We will need to search for the form on the web if we want to file for an extension.
Our late penalty will be $50.00 for each year that we did not file our tax return on time. If we cannot afford it, we can request a fee waiver, which can be turned in with Form SI-100. However, we will not file Form SI-100 until after XUAS has decided on whether or not to renew it at the upcoming May 15, 2020 meeting/conference call.
If we want to be considered for tax exemption in the State of California, we would need to file Form 3500 and include our Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, and $25.00. Yang will go ahead and review this form to see if it is a form that could be filed or if it would require additional factors that must be first considered by the XUAS membership.
To file our taxes, we can use Form 199N. Yang has had an opportunity to review this form (click here). It is straightforward to complete, but it does ask who to list as the Principal Officer, which would fall on President Cha Lee Xiong. He previously indicated that he does not want his name or address to be on any of these documents. One way to get around this may be that it would need to be signed by someone else such as the Vice President, Secretary, or Treasurer. Luexa suggested that we approach President Cha Lee to ask him to sign. If he would not sign it, then we can pursue the other options.
There was one last item that May wrote down that we need to register the new administration with the Franchise Tax Board. However, this task appears to be referring to Form SI-100, which is yet to be determined if XUAS would continue to register or not.

Following the above discussion, we covered the discrepancies that have been found as XUAS’ financial records were reviewed from the year 2013 to the year 2018. The following points were made:

If the records are taken as they are currently kept, there is a discrepancy of $6,003.31 that is unaccounted when President Nhiabee Xiong’s administration started putting XUAS finances in the bank on May 1, 2017. From the period of March 4, 2017 to April 31, 2017, there were no financial records found. Beginning May 1, 2017, all financial records have been just the Wells Fargo bank statement. There were no receipts found either.
In 2016, some receipts received from the Father’s Day fundraiser were made payable to XUAS. By the time XUAS was able to open the checking account so that these checks could be cashed, some of them have already expired or the sponsor no longer has the funds available, causing the check to bounce.
Nhiabee and May clarified that at the time when Nhiabee’s administration commenced on January 1, 2017, the available funds were only $6,100.00, not $10,053.31. Because of this, the math was redone for the Year 2017 to see if it would explain the discrepancy. If we, indeed, use $6,100.00 as the starting balance on January 1, 2017, then it appears that only $50.00 is unaccounted for the Year 2017, and the discrepancy now seems to have been made somewhere between January 1, 2013 – December 31, 2017.
On 2/16/2017, the records showed that a laptop was purchased for XUAS for $600.00. Nhiabee and May indicated that while that purchase was considered, they ultimately decided not to buy it. However, there is no record of the funds having been redeposited.

The next steps are the following:

May and Nhiabee will go back and consult with Tommy Xiong, who was the President from 2013 – 2017, on the discrepancies.
May and Nhiabee will also address the laptop matter.
Yang will report back to President Cha Lee Xiong and the other officers and Board of Directors regarding today’s meeting. Yang will explain Form 199N to President Cha Lee Xiong and the officers. Yang will also start reviewing Form 3500 to determine whether it is a form that can be completed at present or would it need to be tabled due to reasons which may need the involvement of the rest of the XUAS membership.

Board Meetings, Discussions

XUAS Board Meeting of 3/31/2020

by Yang Xiong April 3, 2020 No Comments

The specific purpose for this Board Meeting via conference call is to answer a few questions, which are all related to the question of whether XUAS should continue to pursue getting the legal non-profit status of 501(c)3 based on the IRS codes. Those who made this conference call were: President Tsav Lis Xyooj, V.P. Nkag Neeb Xyooj, Secretary Xiav Phiab Xyooj, Asst. Secretary Luexa Xiong, Treasurer Suav Yaaj Xyooj, Board Member Richard Xiong, former XUAS officers Tommy Xiong, Nhiabee Xiong, and May Cha, XUAS founder Nkag Tswb Xyooj, Advisors Larry Ma Xyooj, Mycie Xiong, and Vaming Xiong. Below is a summary of what transpired and how the meeting concluded.

The former officers of XUAS (May Cha, Nhiabee Xiong, and Tommy Xiong) clarified the vision for turning XUAS into a 501(c)3 organization. Some work had been done, which include these: obtained an EIN, opened a bank account at Wells Fargo Bank and registered XUAS at the California Secretary of State’s office. However, the requirements to be recognized as a 501(c)3 organization have not been met. XUAS is not a legal non-profit organization.
Regarding the need to address the Franchise Tax Board’s demand for filing past due tax returns, it was agreed that Nhiabee would contact the Secretary of State’s office to obtain all of the details we need to fulfill XUAS’ tax filing obligations, etc. Once Nhiabee has obtained this information, he will report back to XUAS and work with Treasurer Yang Xiong to take care of the tax filings.
Regarding the question of whether to renew XUAS’ registration with the Secretary of State’s office, which will be due on 5/31/2020, some feel that if we do not renew it, XUAS will die. The majority of those on the call feel that because of the uncertainty of whether XUAS would pursue becoming a legal non-profit, we should not renew it. Instead, we need to inform the Secretary of State’s office that XUAS has dissolved so that XUAS would no longer be held accountable for filing taxes. By making this statement, however, it does not mean that XUAS is going to be dissolved. XUAS will remain as it has always been for the Xiong clan, where it is a private organization that is not registered with the state or federal government. It was agreed that another meeting/conference call would be held to conclude the discussion on May 15, 2020.

The draft of the official minutes prepared by Secretary Xaiv Phiab Xiong for this board meeting is below:

(Click here for a better viewing experience if the document does not load properly below.)

Board Meetings, Discussions

Demand for Past Due Corporation Tax Return & Related Matter

by Yang Xiong February 13, 2020 No Comments

Hello, my fellow XUAS colleagues.

In our 2/12/2020 meeting, we decided that efforts should be made by President Tsav Lis Xyooj to call an emergency meeting sometime next week to settle the Franchise Tax Board’s demand for XUAS to file tax returns. Because I already knew that I will not be available to meet at all between now and the end of February 2020, I thought I put my thoughts down on the web here so you all would know what I think of the matter even though I won’t be at the meeting.

As you know, we have now been issued two letters of “Demand for Past Due Corporation Tax Return” by the State of California Franchise Tax Board for the tax year 2016. The first demand was issued towards the end of 2019, and the second demand was issued at the end of January 2020.

After receiving the first demand letter, we attempted to address the matter at President Tsav Lis Xyooj’s apartment complex community center sometime in November 2019 but decided that there was a need to look more into the options that are available to us and that we needed to have a meeting with the previous administrations (Tommy Xiong and Nhiabee Xiong) as the demand was for the tax year 2016. Due to many other competing priorities, a meeting was not able to be held until 2/12/2020. Former XUAS officers Nhiabee Xiong, Tommy Xiong, and May Cha were all asked to come to the meeting, but no one was able to make it. President Tsav Lis Xyooj also happened just to sustain a broken arm, which prevented him from making the meeting as well. Consequently, only the following individuals made the meeting: Nkag Neeb Xyooj, Txawj Tuam Xyooj, Bam Xiong, Shuayung Xiong, Luexa Xiong, Tou Xiong, Richard Xiong, and Vam Yaj Xyooj.

We reviewed the situation and noted the following. It is now clear that XUAS is not a legal non-profit organization. The paperwork never got completed. XUAS has an EIN and is registered with the Secretary of State in California, but beyond that, XUAS has nothing in place to be calling itself a legal non-profit organization. Therefore, from here on, we should stop saying that XUAS is a non-profit organization.

Furthermore, because the previous administrations have registered XUAS with the State of California, XUAS is expected to file yearly tax returns. Former XUAS President Nhiabee Xiong, however, clarified via a text message to Shuayung that they never filed any tax returns. This meant that ever since, most likely 2016, when XUAS first registered with the CA Secretary of State’s office, we will be required to file late tax returns.

Because of the above situation, we explored possible solutions. It appears that XUAS has minimal choices:

Do nothing and risk our bank account being frozen, and the government takes our funds for payment of taxes due.
File the tax returns for all of the previous years from 2016 to the present and work to become a legal non-profit organization.
File the tax returns for all of the previous years from 2016 to the present, remove our registration from the State of CA, and don’t pursue becoming a legal non-profit organization.

The general discussion by those present in the meeting and I, personally, leaned towards option 3. The reason is that we currently do not have the capacity within XUAS to turn the organization into a legal non-profit and to handle all of the yearly legal requirements that come with being an established legal entity with the state and the federal government. We saw that the previous administrations attempted to turn XUAS into a legal non-profit, but it was not completed. This led to more issues that we now have to deal with, namely the need to file late tax returns from 2016 to the present.