Ownership of an LLC

[ccapehart]

Texas...

We are giving advisory board members a fractional piece of equity in the company and several of the members want their interest to be designated to their church...Can we legally give a church ownership of a for-prof llc and if so do we have to go about it differently.

Any knowledge or ideas where to find this info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[seniorjudge]

Q: We are giving advisory board members a fractional piece of equity in the company and several of the members want their interest to be designated to their church...Can we legally give a church ownership of a for-prof llc and if so do we have to go about it differently.

A: That is a very good question. I had to read it a couple of times, but are you saying that you want to give some amount of ownership rights to a church? If that is your question, then I'd suggest you tell the recipients that it should be up to them to have their tax accountants give them an answer.

I don't think there is anything wrong with it; people give dough to churches all the time.

Stand by for a tax expert (of which I am not one).

[tranquility]

If the church is a legal entity, yes. There are issues for the church's tax return and there are issues if you wanted to get a deduction for the gift. But, no one can really give you an answer without looking at everything.

By the way your question was worded, it seems like you have other goals beyond just giving ownership of some portion to a church. I only answer that question.