Wheatsville Co-op Austin, TX

[Dan Gillotte <gm AT wheatsville.coop>]

Hello Wheatsville friends!

I was hoping that this e-mail would be a reminder for you to come see us this weekend to pick up your patronage rebate check, however due to some very particular requirements of our friendly IRS, we have to temporarily postpone the distribution of the patronage rebate checks until later this year or early January.

I'm really disappointed to have to wait, and I'm sorry for the delay. I was really looking forward to seeing you all this weekend and dispensing checks. Unfortunately, we can't. So, at this point keep an ear out for our announcement of the rebate dispensing coming soon!

For those of you who want to know more, I'll fill you in here... Basically, the IRS wants us to send 1099s for any patronage check that we send out unless we get an exemption. While we do qualify for an exemption, we have not yet received it from the IRS and our lawyer is advising us to wait until we have that exemption in hand before distributing out the checks. There is a potential fine for EACH check that we write without a 1099 without the exemption, so that is too steep a penalty to take a chance with. We don't want to get cross-wise with the IRS, that's for sure!

Even if we wanted to just go ahead and not get the exemption, we would have problems. In order to send out 1099s, we would need Social Security numbers from all member-owners. We certainly don't want to have to collect and store that sensitive information. Equally important, though is the cost and challenge of sending out hundreds of 1099 forms.

We have been waiting as long as possible before calling off the rebate hand-out for this weekend in order to allow the exemption to show up. Since it has not at this point, I think it's best to postpone. I hope you understand...

I do have some information about the expected patronage that you might find interesting...  The average check will be around $25. The rebate amounts to a return on patronage of about 1.5%. So, for every dollar spent at the co-op in the past year, qualifying member-owners will see about 1.5¢ back!

So, once again, I'm so sorry that I won't be handing checks out to you this weekend, but I'm not standing you up! We'll reschedule and have a great time a little later on. OK? Thanks for your patience and your support!

Here is a brief reminder of who is eligible for a rebate this year:
Current Active member-owner with qualifying purchases in Fiscal year ending 5/31/05
To be current, Wheatsville must have a good address as of November 15th, 2005.
Member-owners of the co-op with enough purchases to return a patronage check of at least $5. 

Fun Event this weekend!
This Sunday, Wheatsville members Amy Tharp Nylund and Rosie Weaver invite you to join them for the Vegan Baking Tour of Wheatsville. Learn how easy it is to treat the vegans in your life to sweet treats! It's 12-1 pm here at the co-op. Delight in recipes for Pumpkin Pie, Coconut Cream Pie, Chocolate Tofu Cream Pie, Frosted Roll-out cookies and more! 

Our Investor Share Program deadline is approaching. We need your commitment to invest by December 15th! If you've been procrastinating, but want to invest, we need you to let us know now!!! Check out this link http://www.wheatsville.coop/invest.html  We've raised over $640,000!!!

I hope you all are enjoying our cold snap and thank you for your understanding about the patronage rebate!

Dan Gillotte
Wheatsville GM and e-mail guy