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Do not donate to me (2013)

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Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#41

Post by carlmr »

Tharkun wrote: post #36

He's Belgian. Belgian taxes are awful. If you want to accept 'donations' for software, you have to be self-employed. This comes with a boatload of hassle, including paying national insurance contributions of 20%. (which are calculated based on your income from three years ago). And given that the man has a day job, he'd also be looking at a 50% tax rate for these donations. So a 100eur donation would net about 40eur…

Same reason I have I not collected any OS bounties. Not worth the hassle for a meager $100.

I'd maybe look into it at $1000+, but most bounties aren't really anything close to making it worth your while if you have a job.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#42

Post by Kirth »

Tharkun wrote: post #36

He's Belgian. Belgian taxes are awful. If you want to accept 'donations' for software, you have to be self-employed. This comes with a boatload of hassle, including paying national insurance contributions of 20%. (which are calculated based on your income from three years ago). And given that the man has a day job, he'd also be looking at a 50% tax rate for these donations. So a 100eur donation would net about 40eur…

And if you are unlucky (Belgian IT salaries aren't that great compared to the rest of Western Europe) you gets bumped a tax class, possibly making those donations a net loss.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#43

Post by patd »

Kirth wrote: post #42
Tharkun wrote: post #36

He's Belgian. Belgian taxes are awful. If you want to accept 'donations' for software, you have to be self-employed. This comes with a boatload of hassle, including paying national insurance contributions of 20%. (which are calculated based on your income from three years ago). And given that the man has a day job, he'd also be looking at a 50% tax rate for these donations. So a 100eur donation would net about 40eur…

And if you are unlucky (Belgian IT salaries aren't that great compared to the rest of Western Europe) you gets bumped a tax class, possibly making those donations a net loss.

This loss concept is just a myth: the new tax rate only applies to the amount above X.

If you're at the edge of the 45% rate, the extra 100€ will be taxed at 50%, but the amount you earned previously will not be impacted and still be taxed as before.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#44

Post by AnaniasAnanas »

Tharkun wrote: post #36

He's Belgian. Belgian taxes are awful. If you want to accept 'donations' for software, you have to be self-employed. This comes with a boatload of hassle, including paying national insurance contributions of 20%. (which are calculated based on your income from three years ago). And given that the man has a day job, he'd also be looking at a 50% tax rate for these donations. So a 100eur donation would net about 40eur…

This is one of the few situations where cryptocurrencies come in handy.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#46

Post by kurtisc »

AnaniasAnanas wrote: post #44
Tharkun wrote: post #36

He's Belgian. Belgian taxes are awful. If you want to accept 'donations' for software, you have to be self-employed. This comes with a boatload of hassle, including paying national insurance contributions of 20%. (which are calculated based on your income from three years ago). And given that the man has a day job, he'd also be looking at a 50% tax rate for these donations. So a 100eur donation would net about 40eur…

This is one of the few situations where cryptocurrencies come in handy.

Money laundering?

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#47

Post by systemtest »

endorphone wrote: post #9
snazz wrote: post #2

This seems like a very fair policy if the developer doesn’t need the money, as in this example. However, as a user, I hope that setting up a recurring donation keeps the project going and provides motivation to its author.

This particular trend -- not only not asking for contributions, but openly denying them (often in advance, and when none were ever offered) for a better cause -- is a rising tendency across virtually all of Western society. Watch any challenge with a monetary prize and invariably they'll turn the sad music on and demand that the contestants regale a tale about the old grandma in the old country, or the kid's club the…

I don't have ads on my personal blog because I want to give my readers a pleasant experience, not one with ads all over the page, AVG compliance popups and cookie notice bars.

I "lose" about 10 euro per month in ad revenue but I have a good job, I don't care about 10 euro.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#48

Post by irishsultan »

pmoriarty wrote: post #25
doesnt_know wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accepting money isn't "free", and usually incurs a non-trivial overhead. If it's someones hobby it's easier to just not accept money and focus on the actual hobby . Some kid getting pocket money from a lemonade stand is significantly different to accepting recurring donations as an adult. Dealing with either setting up some sort of non-profit, managing tax in your country, accepting international currencies or suppor…

"Accepting money isn't "free", and usually incurs a non-trivial overhead." Is that really true? What if I say I only accept checks, or certified checks even. Wouldn't depositing such checks be trivial? Yes, you do have to pay taxes on the money (which in countries other than the United States can be very simple), but apart from that the other things you list such as setting up a non-profit, accepting international cu…

> Wouldn't depositing such checks be trivial?

In Belgium? No, not really, nobody uses checks and I'm fairly certain that for most banks it will cost quite a bit of money to deposit.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#49

Post by notimetorelax »

Tharkun wrote: post #36

He's Belgian. Belgian taxes are awful. If you want to accept 'donations' for software, you have to be self-employed. This comes with a boatload of hassle, including paying national insurance contributions of 20%. (which are calculated based on your income from three years ago). And given that the man has a day job, he'd also be looking at a 50% tax rate for these donations. So a 100eur donation would net about 40eur…

This looks like a total failure of the tax system.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#50

Post by gjm11 »

kurtisc wrote: post #46
AnaniasAnanas wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the few situations where cryptocurrencies come in handy.

Money laundering?

It's tax evasion, not money laundering. The two are quite different things.

Tax evasion: You get some money. (Legally or not; the tax system doesn't care.) You are supposed to pay taxes on it but don't want to. You find a way not to, e.g. by hiding the income from the tax authorities.

Money laundering: You get some money by illegal means (theft, blackmail, whatever). You want to be able to use the money without having the authorities notice it, get suspicious about where it came from, and discover your crime. You find a way to pass the money from place to place so that by the time you actually do anything that might be noticed, it's difficult or impossible to trace it back to anything illegal.

[EDITED to add:] Also different from both: tax _avoidance_. You get some money. You don't want to pay taxes on it. It turns out that the law actually allows you not to, and you take advantage of that. But this feature of the law is unintended, or blatantly unfair, or clearly the way it is because of someone lobbying on behalf of people in situations like yours.

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