[Editor’s notes: This report was transcribed by Heather Shannon. The editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance.
[This document appears four time in this section, at B-5-a(10), B-5-a(28), B-5-a(63) and B-5-a(64). The typewritten text for the one-page report appears first, with annotations listed afterwards.]
Law Office Report #9 December 29, 1977 from June
1. Truth Enterprises, Inc.
We learned from Harold last night that the printing equipment downstairs, which we think is owned by Truth Enterprises corporation, is NOT insured. In April Ed asked Harold to insure the equipment, because although originally it had been decided to close down the corporation, for some reason this was changed and it was finally decided to keep Truth active, and since printing equipment was still in use and would be, Ed wanted the equipment insured. Insurance would cover any incident where someone from the outside came in to repair or service the equipment and had an injury in the process, or if there was a fire in the print shop.
Harold said to insure the equipment now at current rates will cost $3,000 for one year, in advance. The insurance company does not insure for 3 or 6 months. If you cancel the policy before the year is up, you get a refund on the balance. But you initially have to put out $3,000. Some years ago the printing equipment was insured and we paid $900 a year, but since then the rates have gone up everywhere. Also, the equipment being located in San Francisco causes a higher rate.
$3,000 is so high, last night Jean Brown, Harold and Clancy and I talked about alternatives. We are pretty dense about the whole thing because there is nothing in the corporate files to explain the answers to the following questions, so I am sending this over, in hopes some consultation over there will feed us back some explanation…BEFORE WE TAKE STEPS TO INSURE…unless we hear otherwise from you.
At one time, we considered having Truth Enterprises corporation dissolve, and donate the printing equipment to Peoples Temple corporation. It was never done. We assume there was a legal reason for this but none of us know it/ The reason we bring it up now is that if we did dissolve Truth and donate the printing equipment to P.T., we might be able to include the equipment under the already existing P.T. liability insurance policy and avoid putting out $3,000 for a new policy.
- Is there a legal reason why we can’t dissolve Truth and donate to P.T. and insure under P.T. policy?
- Would we be jeopardizing P.T.’s tax status if we dissolved Truth and operated the print shop under P.T. corporation?
- If we insured printing equipment under P.T. insurance policy, would we have to list the print shop on the insurance policy as a business? Does this enter into our “unrelated business income” problem? Do we get in trouble with zoning?
- If we dissolved Truth, put the print shop under P.T., could we stop the filing of the resale tax permit quarterly reports — this permit is for when we buy goods and pay no sales tax, then perform a service or sell something from those goods (i.e. printing for outside jobs) and charge sales tax on it. Clancy says now there are no real outside jobs which we charge for, other than a nominal sum to Sun Reporter. So we end up filing quarterly sales tax report and paying tax, but not getting any income to make up for it. In this case, why not just pay sales tax in the first place and eliminate the paperwork of the quarterly reports?
Annotations
B-5-a-(10):
- Second paragraph is bracketed with note: “must insure regardless of cost for fire”
- Third paragraph is bracketed with note: “Insure immediately in P.T.’s name & gift letter of gift from [Eugene] Chaikin. If not, I want to be consulted why!” [illegible single initial]
- Paragraph “a” notation: “OK as of 12/31/77 E. [Eugene]”, followed by “Agreed” with single initial from previous paragraph
- Paragraph “b” notations: “Do no outside work”; “If it does any paying jobs – yes” in Chaikin’s handwriting; “Agreed” with single initial from previous paragraphs
- Paragraph “c” notations: “not if we don’t have the income”; Answer to first question in paragraph: “If it is”; Answer to second question in paragraph: “Yes”; Answer to third question in paragraph: “Don’t know but would with fire marshal, OSHA, etc.”
- Paragraph “d” notations: “If we are not selling paper to the Sun-Reporter we are OK, I think” in Chaikin’s handwriting; “no is also for use tax”; “we’ll lose wholesale privilege from major suppliers who don’t give same discounts”; final notation marked in Chaikin’s handwriting, “ask Tish [Leroy]”
B-5-a-(63): Handwritten “JC” next to June Crym’s name
B-5-a-(64): “Extra copy”