[HCoop-Discuss] Tax refund and banking relationships

[Nathan Kennedy]

Two things:

1. In the past week I put two and two together and realized that though we
filed a tax return and paid income tax of $143 for 2005, our tax-exemption
was retroactive to our date of incorporation.  This means that we can get
a refund for the entire amount if we file for it with the IRS before the
three-year statute of limitations runs out.  Adam & Davor, are you
on-board with me filing for this refund?  I can email it for review before
I file it.  This could be applied to our next Peer1 charge once we get it.

2. We have been banking with Wells Fargo, and it has worked pretty nicely
for us so far and I am pretty happy with them.  However, they are a west
coast operation, and now that both Adam and I are in NYC I think we should
consider opening an account with the National Cooperative Bank.
(http://www.ncb.coop) I wasn't aware of them when we originally were
selecting financial institutions, but unlike other credit unions that only
allow individual and sole proprietor members, it is a Congressionally
chartered credit union targetting cooperatives, so we could join it.  Its
main office is also in Manhattan which would be convenient for Adam if he
ever needed to visit--which is not currently an option for Wells Fargo.

There is certainly a sense of "don't change what's not broken" but I do
think it would be good to bank with a credit union and be partnering with
other cooperatives in that way, rather than going with a regular old
commercial bank, ESPECIALLY with the financial market heading the way it
is, and with the recent behavior of commercial banking (although to be
fair I think WF has a better record than most).  We could keep our account
with Wells Fargo for now, open a second account at NCB, and then switch
over our payment systems and billing systems one at a time to eliminate
any minimal risks of disruption.  I know Paypal in particular makes it
simple to link multiple bank accounts.

-ntk