1. The distinction “non-profit”/”not for profit” does not actually exist in any jurisdiction I’ve been able to find. They are two different ways of describing the same sort of legal entity. The laws are usually at the state level, and different states have different names, so one state may call them “non-profit,” another “not-for-profit,” and another (California) may call them “public benefit.” They’re all generally the same. In addition, profit-making status generally is defined at the state level in the USA, while tax status is generally defined at the federal level by the IRS, which is why you talk about “501(c)(3)” organizations, that being the status that ComicCon and many other non-profit genre conventions have.

2. The World Science Fiction Society does require the individual organizing committees (each year’s convention is run by a completely new group, legally and financially independent of its predecessor and successor) to file financial statements showing how it has spent the money it took in for that Worldcon. (Details are in Article 2 of the WSFS Constitution. However, this does not mean that a Worldcon must have spent all of its money by the end of the convention, as Vinnie implies. It can take years before a Worldcon finishes spending all of its “reportable WSFS surplus.” In addition, since 1989, most Worldcons have automatically passed forward at least half of any surplus to be split evenly among the next three Worldcon committees. (Not all Worldcons during this period have had surplus funds to pass along in this way.)

This does not invalidate the general point that most legitimate fan-run SF/F genre conventions are run as non-profit organizations, and many of them have considerable financial openness, which I consider quite admirable.

In SDCC’s case, the “profits” are poured into the next year’s show, so there’s no need to give the money away.

These kind of articles got written after any major event that looks terribly expensive, in an attempt to rile the public up about people “getting away with” not paying taxes. There were a few in the San Diego papers last year. And as you see, they caused the con to be declared for profit, which meant the con couldn’t be run this year.

Oh, wait…

As a rule, once the people actually make the decisions are reminded about how many people are brought to the city, and how many hotels they filled, and how much money they spent in the city, the issue is quickly forgotten.

It’s whole reason Las Vegas ans Los Angeles want to bring the con to their towns. It’s a gold mine. Heck, you remember how fast the Mayor of SD bent over backwards to apologize for last year’s remark about the American Idol auditionees being “people with real talent” as opposed to the folks at the con? He knows what would happen to the city if the con went away.

These articles are merely attempts to get one’s name in print, and to get a little attention. If people start looking at SDCC’s status, it’s only a setp away to check every charity for their status, and nobody wants that.