Take something as simple as Mozilla. Most of their work revolves around publishing the Firefox browser, they collect donations from Google for using Google's home page. After that it gets murky because there is another for-profit Mozilla in the background that makes its own deals for things like the Firefox Phone OS where "Free Spftware" isn't allowed.
The IRS starts caring who gets what cut of those Goohle "donations"? Who owns the offices, pays the wages, and who owns the IP? It gets extra murky when an Open Source project get SOLD and more money starts changing hands... Suddenly a "non-profit" gets its assets sold for millions of dollars... The IRS wants its TAX moment cause they got to feed Uncle Sam.
I think the problem they have are 2 college kid companies that start as "open source" while they build something (and its true they eat Ramen the whole time) only to sell that for millions later. The ITS doesn't like giving away tax money if they don't have to.. Especially when they could have been collecting it all along ... Big companies know this and I'm sure "help" the IRS know which kids to go after.
I think the problem they have are 2 college kid companies that start as "open source" while they build something (and its true they eat Ramen the whole time) only to sell that for millions later. The ITS doesn't like giving away tax money if they don't have to.. Especially when they could have been collecting it all along ... Big companies know this and I'm sure "help" the IRS know which kids to go after.