this leaves more legal questions since they are actually calling us "shareholders" in this announcement...
Considering that the product is called 'BitShares' this should be no more problematic than 'Disney Dollars', 'Dollar Rent-a-Car', 'Dollar General' stores, etc., none of which is controlled by the Federal Reserve System or the US Treasury Department. Likewise, Federal Express is not operated by the Department of Transportation, and Royal Crown Cola is not owned by the House of Windsor.
which brings into question this whole "donation" thing even more (not just legally with the "stockholders/donators", but what about the IRS come tax time, this is taxable income to them)...
Corporate taxes in the USA are paid on profits. Expenses incurred in the development of BitShares, including salaries, travel, and marketing, are subtracted before taxes are calculated.
...this is a huge can of legal worms that could cause the entire value to be expunged by a large lawsuit or FTC investigation... this is what worries me... they are muddying the waters SO much calling things by different names every step of the way as if they are trying to legally sidestep something to create a legal barrier for which they have flat out broken wide open... I wish they would just call the apple an apple... so we can have clarity about buying oranges here...
If it turns out that the term 'shareholder' should be changed to 'BitShareholder', 'stakeholder', 'sponsor', or whatever, Invictus Innovations can issue a clarification.
With regard to donations to for-profit entities, ten minutes of searching online turned these up:
"For-Profit Charity"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_charity
"For-Profit Charities"
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2006/09/forprofit_chari.html
"Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/technology/14google.html
"The Reasons for For-Profit Philanthropy"
http://www.brooklaw.edu/newsandevents/blslawnotes/2010-2009/fall/googleforprofitphilanthropy/page3.aspx
"Five Ways to Realize Profits and Missions"
http://blogs.hbr.org/2009/10/five-ways-to-realize-profits-and-missions/
"Canonical Opens Donations for Ubuntu, Lets You Put Money for a Mobile Version"
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Canonical-opens-donations-for-Ubuntu-lets-you-put-money-for-a-mobile-version_id35383
My problem being, their intermixing of the words, does not leave a clear and concise term for what it is you are receiving... are you a donator... are you an earner... are you an investor... are you a shareholder... are you a competitor... they have intermixed all of these terms and each one has different legal liabilities...
absolutely a for-profit company may accept donations... however they are taxable income but being represented as a donations... in MANY of the 50 american states, you MUST follow certain procedures and statement when you make that claim, you must supply notice that is it not deductible on the persons side because they are not a non-profit organization, some states say you must inform people the donation can be taxed by the IRS, and some states have all sorts of other goofy laws... so I am not challenging if they can accept this money, I am challenging the problems that may arise as a result of HOW they have taken this money...
they have left the door wide open to interpretation by not clearly defining within each states regulation what must be stated to people exchanging this "commodity" to them means... they've simply called it 5 different things on their AGS page... thats a serious issue for the community because this was promised to develop our community... which is the premise we all "donated" with... would people donate $20 million dollars if they knew $10 million could be given to the government... which seems to be the very "beast" we are trying to avoid with decentralization... would people donate if they knew their money would not be put towards them... would they donate if they knew this was a for-profit business that has no legal obligation to the community, where-as a non-profit would have stronger regulations preventing some expenses deemed inappropriate that a for-profit is not held to the same standard...
what they SHOULD be doing is saying you are a customer, who is buying this product, and this is the price... by having "donations", "competition", etc etc... they are opening the door to allowing someone else to decide in a court of law what it truely represents versus clearly defining it and protecting our community... thats my issue...
corporate taxes are not purely based solely on profits... there are many taxes they must pay along the way including payroll, healthcare, etc etc that will be taxed irregardless of profit along with state local and other federal taxes... the health affordable care act alone introduces dozens of new taxes you can't escape... and depending how employees are classified as independant contractors or not, even more taxes... they may release "bounties" but even some of those could be taxable depending on the terms of the contract work the individual could be seen as an employee under certain terms... there are a whole host of taxes you can not escape so some WILL be paid no matter what... it also depends how this is structured, is this actually incorporated or are they "doing business as" under the CEO's social security number which opens the door to even more taxes and liabilities...
also the "product" is not bitshares... people are buying/donating/earning/competing for AGS shares, which give a dividend payment of bitshares... you see where that muddies the water between stockholders and investors too now... the only way to obtain AGS is to exchange a commodity of some form for it, and as a result you are given something else that has other meaning and value... that alone very well could be a representation of an IPO under the securities and exchange commission...