facilitating donations
Oliver Elphick
> now, instead of transfering each and every donation separately, these
> two people start establishing a fund, and report to the SPI treasurer
> in regular intervals. this fund can be used for national debian
> events, after permission is granted by the treasurer. or, if the
> treasurer wants, any part of the current sum can be transferred to the
> US on request.
>
> this is basically how germany handles it. but i do see a problem
> (actually, Joey told me) - this does not work for people who want to
> deduct their donations from taxes, because there isn't a charitable
> organization to receive and write receipts for the donations.
> moreover, you have to be a charitable organization to be able to
> receive donations, or else you'll be in trouble for receiving money
> that you don't pay taxes for.
English law (I think the same applies to Scotland and N. Ireland) does
not allow people to set gifts against taxes, but does enable a charity
to recover income tax paid on gifts it receives. A charity needs to be
registered with the Charities Commission, which means that its trust
deed (or memorandum and articles in the case of an incorporated company)
must meet with their approval. This is not particularly difficult to
achieve, and I think that Debian's aims can probably be taken as
charitable under the "public good" heading.
Some Debian members in the UK discussed this a couple of years ago, but
so far there has not really been a need to do it. If the treasurer is
willing for your scheme to go ahead, I am happy to help with it in
England.
--
Oliver Elphick Oliver....@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
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temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of
judgment to be punished;" II Peter 2:9
Adam Majer
5B>
> in any case, donating to debian is *way* too US centric, and while
> europe almost sees no more distinction between national and
> intracontinental transfers (and even asia isn't hard to transfer to
> and fro), the US/Canada just happens to have the least compatible (and
> most awkward) banking system of the universe IMHO. donating to debian
> should be easy. the donor shouldn't have to jump through hoops and put
> effort behind his generosity.
>
> but: the SPI is already discussing ways. paypal is (a) too US centric
> and infeasible outside the US, and (b) it's expensive. and there
> aren't any other ways really. so i say - delegate, branch, take on the
> world!
I know what you are talking about [even though I'm in Canada :-]. IMHO,
the best thing to do is to have some sort of an "office" in Europe. Maybe
in Germany. They would receive all donations from around the world and
the current system could remain for people in Canada/US.
IMO, Debian should not need to be cetralized as the organization is
rather global.
- Adam
martin f krafft
> I know what you are talking about [even though I'm in Canada :-]. IMHO,
> the best thing to do is to have some sort of an "office" in Europe. Maybe
> in Germany. They would receive all donations from around the world and
> the current system could remain for people in Canada/US.
this already exists in the form of a cooperation with ffis, the
foundation for promotion of free information and software in germany:
http://www.ffis.de/Verein/spi-en.html
but it's still a hassle to donate if you are in the UK (or any other
non-Euro country). the banks will earn the most, and donations to
debian shouldn't let anyone cut a piece of the cake who isn't debian.
--
martin; (greetings from the heart of the sun.)
\____ echo mailto: !#^."<*>"|tr "<*> mailto:" net@madduck
today's an excellent day
for putting slinkies on an escalator.
Henrique de Moraes Holschuh
On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, martin f krafft wrote:
> i just received a donation for debian from a fan in the UK through
> paypal, because donating to debian from anywhere but the US and
> Germany is a pain. but talking to Joey about it, i just had this idea
I suppose the Debian treasurer could also setup a paypal account and arrange
for accepting donations through international credit cards (VISA, at the
very least. Credit cards are one of the cheapest ways of sending money off
the country in many places, including Brazil. Postal money orders are
another reasonably cheap method for moderate amounts, and bank transfers are
always extremely expensive, at least in Brazil).
I am not sure about the deductibility from taxes for the above methods,
though -- that is very likely country-depenant. The cost of sending receipts
over snailmail can easily outdo very small donations, also.
That said, the idea of allowing SPI registered members in other countries to
setup local branches for colleting donations is a good one, if the inherent
problems can be worked out.
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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Phil Blundell
> this is basically how germany handles it. but i do see a problem
> (actually, Joey told me) - this does not work for people who want to
> deduct their donations from taxes, because there isn't a charitable
> organization to receive and write receipts for the donations.
> moreover, you have to be a charitable organization to be able to
> receive donations, or else you'll be in trouble for receiving money
> that you don't pay taxes for.
I don't think it should be a big deal to set up national chapters of SPI
that collect donations and just forward them to the US. I would expect
these to qualify as charitable bodies in most countries.
As far as the UK is concerned, domestic charities can reclaim basic-rate
tax on donations so long as the donor has signed a Gift Aid declaration.
(If the donor pays higher-rate tax he can claim relief on the difference
between basic and higher rates; alternatively you can have your employer
make charity donations directly from your gross salary in which case no
tax is payable.) Donations to overseas charities don't qualify for any
tax relief at all which, together with the administration fees involved
in sending money to the US, makes giving to SPI a fairly inefficient
business at the moment.
p.
Wichert Akkerman
> (Shouldn't we move this thread to -project?)
spi-general would be better.
> I suppose the Debian treasurer could also setup a paypal account and arrange
> for accepting donations through international credit cards (VISA, at the
> very least.
At the last SPI board meeting we decided to not use paypal since the
terms set in the small print aren't acceptable. We will be looking
at alternatives such as creditcards.
(For the interested, minutes for SPI board meetings can be found at
http://www.spi-inc.org/. They are not posted directly after a meeting
since they have to be approved at the next meeting).
Wichert.
--
_________________________________________________________________
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| wic...@deephackmode.org http://www.liacs.nl/~wichert/ |
| 1024D/2FA3BC2D 576E 100B 518D 2F16 36B0 2805 3CB8 9250 2FA3 BC2D |
martin f krafft
> (Shouldn't we move this thread to -project?)
since i am not subscribed there (yet), someone else...
> On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, martin f krafft wrote:
> > i just received a donation for debian from a fan in the UK through
> > paypal, because donating to debian from anywhere but the US and
> > Germany is a pain. but talking to Joey about it, i just had this idea
>
> I suppose the Debian treasurer could also setup a paypal account and arrange
> for accepting donations through international credit cards (VISA, at the
> very least. Credit cards are one of the cheapest ways of sending money off
> the country in many places, including Brazil. Postal money orders are
> another reasonably cheap method for moderate amounts, and bank transfers are
> always extremely expensive, at least in Brazil).
it's been discussed. paypal charges way too much.
--
martin; (greetings from the heart of the sun.)
\____ echo mailto: !#^."<*>"|tr "<*> mailto:" net@madduck
breakfast.com halted - cereal port not responding.
Branden Robinson
> On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 10:10:16AM -0600, Scott M. Dier wrote:
> > Andreas Metzler wrote:
>
> > >at least EUR 7,-. The EU commission is going to force the banks to
>
> > Is that even when the money is deposited to/from accounts based in euro?
> > Or is this from local money->euro->local money, or what? I'm really
> > confused. :)
>
> The euro /is/ the local money now in the aforementioned countries.
So, they're essentially charging you an exchange fee for converting Euro
to Euro.
The United States clearly does not contain 100% of the world's venal
bastards. (Just most of them.)
--
G. Branden Robinson | I just wanted to see what it looked
Debian GNU/Linux | like in a spotlight.
bra...@debian.org | -- Jim Morrison
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
Branden Robinson
> I don't think it should be a big deal to set up national chapters of SPI
> that collect donations and just forward them to the US. I would expect
> these to qualify as charitable bodies in most countries.
I don't even think it's absolutely necessary that the monies be
forwarded to the US. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of
autonomous national chapters of SPI:
Pro:
1) Would probably make donations much easier for donors in respective
countries
2) Each chapter could serve as a coordination center for hardware
donations within that country. Sometimes I get mails from a person in a
foreign country wanting to donate equipment, but he doesn't want to ship
it to the U.S. National chapters would probably know more about the
needs of Debian developers local to their country than "SPI America"
would.
3) It would establish infrastructure for Debian (and other SPI Projects)
that would probably be retained in the event that Fritz Hollings and
John Ashcroft team up and decide that promoting Free Software is the
same thing as sponsoring terrorism, shuts down SPI, seizes all its
assests, and throws all of its officers in prison.[1]
[1] Don't believe this? This is the administration that has learned
that crisis is the key to keeping their boy's approval ratings up, and
now that things have settled down in Afghanistan, complete with an armed
garrison of U.S. soldiers to safeguard the oil pipeline that will be
running through Afghanistan from the Caspian Sea -- and owned by the
same American energy companies that out-bid the Democrats for the White
House. <http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew41.php> This is also
the administration whose novel idea of a remedy for Microsoft's
violations of antitrust law is to entrench the monopoly further.
Hang on a second, some assholes are knocking at my door really loudly
and shouting...
NO CARRIER
--
G. Branden Robinson | Software engineering: that part of
Debian GNU/Linux | computer science which is too
bra...@debian.org | difficult for the computer
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | scientist.
John H. Robinson, IV
>
> I don't even think it's absolutely necessary that the monies be
> forwarded to the US.
driving to work this morning (or was it home last night? i forget) i was
thinking much the same way. another bonus is that there is no exchange
rates to bother with, and it would be fully tax-deductable within the
confines of the donator's country.
the hard part, or potentially legally sticking point, would be to make
points of contact within each country. i have no knowledge of such
things, so i can't even begin to imagine how such a thing would be.
would it be one Global Organisation, or a bunch of loosley knit
coöperating organisations, all with the same name? i don't know.
but i like the idea.
-john