Occupy Wall Street Video Project

[anart]

Well, I am not so surprised. There is a reason that this whole corporate world is such a huge mess in this country. Accounts are a big part of it, especially big corporate accountants. Thanks again.

"Big corporate accountant"? Is that what yours is? So how can you afford paying him if you can barely pay your rent? I don't get it.

Moreover, if my accountant was that dumb, I'd be worried.

I have to agree.  It's VERY common knowledge that information must be filed with the state every two years (for some companies/states every year) so it really doesn't add up.  I certainly wouldn't be paying an accountant who gives advice that could get me into legal trouble.

[Fifth Way]

Well, I am not so surprised. There is a reason that this whole corporate world is such a huge mess in this country. Accounts are a big part of it, especially big corporate accountants. Thanks again.

"Big corporate accountant"? Is that what yours is? So how can you afford paying him if you can barely pay your rent? I don't get it.

The company has of course many employees and the one working on my small company is naturally on the very bottom of the fee-scale.

The reason I have them at all: When I started in 1997 I was working as a commercial director and working for ad agencies from many different countries. There are many complicated international tax regulations that I would not have been able to understand let alone handle myself. It is the same reason why I incorporated in the first place, as it made it easier to satisfy the complicated international bureaucracy.

After departing from my ex-wife's accountant I was already in divorce procedures and discovery was in full progress. I was demanded by cord to produce all kinds of financial documents. Again I would not have been able to produce those without an accountant. And no, I could not afford it at the time either but I had to do it that way anyway. This is the system. It can easily ruin you in the process. As a returning client of many years I got a good deal however and I took the deal. The divorce has only been finalized about 6 or 8 weeks ago.

In the meantime my accountat has called the Department of State. This is what he wrote back and what I will do now:

I spoke with the NYS Department of State at 518-473-2492 this afternoon regarding the biennial statement filing.  NYS suggested you send an email requesting for a current biennial statement.  NYS Department of State’s email address is:  corporations@dos.state.ny.us.  For your convenience, please use the email below when you send it to the NYS.
 
 
---------------------------------------------------
Dear NYS Department of State:
 
My name is ___________, an officer for John Galt Films, Inc.  I would like to request for a current biennial statement for the corporation.  Based on a phone conversation with the NYS Department of State on January 24, 2012, you would need the following information before issuing a current statement:
 
Corporation name:  John Galt Films, Inc.
Incorporation date:  Jan 10, 1997
Current address:   192 East 75th Street, Apt. PH-A, New York, NY 10021
 
Please replace the old address “288 W 4th Street, Apt 3F, New York, NY 10014” with the current corporate address listed above in your system.
 
Should you have any questions please feel free to let me know.  My contact phone number is: ____________-
 
 
Thank you.

[Guardian]

In the meantime my accountat has called the Department of State. This is what he wrote back and what I will do now:

I spoke with the NYS Department of State at 518-473-2492 this afternoon regarding the biennial statement filing.  NYS suggested you send an email requesting for a current biennial statement.  NYS Department of State’s email address is:  corporations@dos.state.ny.us.  For your convenience, please use the email below when you send it to the NYS.
 
 
---------------------------------------------------
Dear NYS Department of State:
 
My name is ___________, an officer for John Galt Films, Inc. I would like to request for a current biennial statement for the corporation. 

So your accountant writes like English is his second language too? 

[Fifth Way]

Yep 
I guess I have to improve on the email a bit ......

[Guardian]

Yep 
I guess I have to improve on the email a bit ......

FW, do you really think I'm falling for any of this?

[Fifth Way]

Yep 
I guess I have to improve on the email a bit ......

FW, do you really think I'm falling for any of this?

What I meant is that I have to correct the grammar. The particular accountant that is working on this is asian. His last name is Wang.
What do you mean by "falling for this". Are you saying I am making this up?
Well, I don't. If you don't believe it there is nothing I can do about it.

[Perceval]

I've often wondered why you chose the character from Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged as the name of your company. John Galt is basically the voice of and apologist for voracious capitalism.

[Fifth Way]

I've often wondered why you chose the character from Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged as the name of your company. John Galt is basically the voice of and apologist for voracious capitalism.

I wondered why nobody had ask me that before.

I picked the name long before I understood the background of Ayn Rand and her pathology (in 1996 to be precise). So that was more than half a decade before I arrived here on the forum.

Back then I liked "The Fountainhead" and later "Atlas Shrugged" very much. As a creative person I identified with the described constant attempts of the business to corrupt the artist (particularly in "The Fountainhead").  And a hero in a movie or a novel often needs to be over the top and completely idealized towards a certain direction to be a good hero for the story. (i.e. James Bond is clearly a psychopath)

At the time I had no clue (I am not American and Rand is pretty unknown in Germany) that Rand developed a whole philosophy based on the traits of a fictitious and unrealistic novel hero and was actually expecting people to behave like it in real life.  Knowing what I know today her heros and she herself  are pathological. Only much later I learned about all of this. I think her whole objectivism is complete nonsense and designed to be exploited by psychopaths for some pseudo-moralistic reasoning.

I considered to change the name once I found out but at that time my company was somewhat established under this name. Also in my business where companies constantly spring up and fold a continues exsitence of a company matters to secure new clients. Further the majority of people I am dealing with business-wise haven't read Rand nor do they know who John Galt is. Live hammers you with stuff an keeps you busy and certain things always end up on the bottom of the priority list. So I never got around to change the name.

Since I have been doing my car films I emphasized the series name "GT- Racer" more and more. I went away from John Galt. For the psychopathy project though GT-Racer obviously would not have worked. As a mater of fact, once you go into production with an independent film or documentary, you often create a new company just for that film and I was considering doing this for the psychopathy project.

I am neither a follower of Ayn Rand nor do I think of John Galt as a role-model.

I hope I answered your question.

[sitta]

With so much dancing around the subject it's almost a full blown brakedance by now.

I'm not a US citizen but come on, there are things you must do irregardless of where you are starting a business.
Don't  you have to register your own firm, pay the fees or at least sign the appropriate forms if the registration is filed by proxy.  Didn't you get any documents confirming change in address for your corporation. Don't you have to sign those kind of papers? Don't you have originals or copies of those kind of papers in your posesion?!

It's really hard to believe that a person who owns a business doesn't have the papers (or at least copies).

[Guardian]

I wondered why nobody had ask me that before.

Waste of bandwidth 'cause I already knew what your answer would be.

At the time I had no clue

[Fifth Way]

With so much dancing around the subject it's almost a full blown brakedance by now.

I'm not a US citizen but come on, there are things you must do irregardless of where you are starting a business.
Don't  you have to register your own firm, pay the fees or at least sign the appropriate forms if the registration is filed by proxy.  Didn't you get any documents confirming change in address for your corporation. Don't you have to sign those kind of papers? Don't you have originals or copies of those kind of papers in your posesion?!

It's really hard to believe that a person who owns a business doesn't have the papers (or at least copies).

My accountant doug out my original papers of incorporation that reflect what is already established. It was incorporated at the W4th Street address. I never received any notice or biennial statement, apparently neither did they. I requested now the address change with the NY Dept. of State and waiting for them to send me the paperwork.

[Foxx]

I'm a little late to this thread.

First of all, thank you Guardian for all the detective work and being another demonstration of what needs to be done to not be taken advantage of and not to let pathology flourish.  Clearly I should have found this thread and read it at the time I was helping Fifth Way with the film (though admittedly I did not know his forum name at the time--also my mistake).

That's incredibly disingenuous, FW.  You immediately saw that being involved with EE also got you involved with a number of forum/group members which you then proceeded to exploit covertly.  You tried, once again, to use the group to promote YOU.

That was me--I helped Fifth Way after an EE meeting.  There were a number of red flags (most notably I knew that Laura hadn't endorsed the project "yet", but was unaware of the feedback she gave on this thread, despite having asked Fifth Way what she thought about it) that I brushed aside thinking that the risk to me was limited and that the film could be a potentially positive endeavor and possibly help the network more--obviously wrong.  First-hand demonstration of why individual members meeting up is fraught with issues.

I also find it hard to believe that, considering the way Laura spoke about her feedback regarding his film making abilities on the forum, he was unclear about what she thought, resulting in his being intentionally deceptive regarding her feedback.

So some people had actually already given money? I thought it was only at the pledge-level for the moment, that the money was pledged until the whole sum (60K) was reached, at which point the money was to be paid by the 'pledgers'?

It's true that the Kickstarter campaign didn't charge anyone, requiring that the project be funded in full by the deadline before making any charges.  However, Fifth Way did not mention that he also had a paypal account set up to take donations from people who didn't have/use credit cards or wanted another way of contributing.  Someone suggested that one avenue of additional fund raising would be that people could donate items that were going to be sold on ebay wherein that money would go into his paypal account and get pledged against his credit card on the kickstarter campaign.  I basically consulted on the logistical challenge that this would be and I don't recall exactly whether he said he had gotten any money donations, though I think he may have gotten one or two through paypal--I'm just not certain.

Did you get any donations through paypal Fifth Way and, if so, did you refund the money?

[Fifth Way]

Did you get any donations through paypal Fifth Way and, if so, did you refund the money?

Two, one of which was from the person who suggested it. Of course they have be refunded.

[Fifth Way]

There have been a few comments as to the fact that I left questions unanswered. I read through the thread again and am not clear about which one that could be.

I have learned in this process that I cannot rely on my own thinking, as it is selective towards what I want and believe and what I do not want to believe, so I cannot figure this out without your help.

If you could kindly point out to me what I have not answered please.  Thank you.