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Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland. The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here. We have a law called "Money Co

Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland. The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here. We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit. This permit costs money, is not given to individuals, and is given only for non-profit activities. So this means that if you see a donation/sponsorship button on a software project where the money goes to a Finnish person, it is illegal (unless they have obtained a permit, which is highly unlikely). If you see a patreon/sponsorship with rewards, it's a grey area. The only clearly legal way is by selling actual things, and of course then you quickly need to set up a business. I host a free project myself and I've had to set up a business (sole proprietorship) and sell things in order to get money for server costs. Even though people have been interested in donating, I can't do that legally.

zucker42 6y ago
What is the ostensible purpose behind that law? Seems like something you could get changed (with considerable effort) considering there appear to be no strong interests who benefit from it.
- rverghese 6y ago
  People pretending to be charities and scamming donations. The idea would be that all legitimate charities are registered and have a permit. If they don't, it's likely a scam.
- Ndymium 6y ago
  I think it's originally to prevent scammers. Like if someone was collecting money door-to-door and then said that people willingly donated to them (which would be true). I think it's just to add oversight into those kind of situations and to prevent scam money collection campaigns.
AlchemistCamp 6y ago
How common are bootstrapped (i.e. non-wealthy, non VC-funded) entrepreneurs in Finland?
- spurdoman77 6y ago
  Common. It is a capitalist, moderately wealthy country.
- _bxg1 6y ago
  From what I can tell this has nothing to do with that. Anything that could be considered commerce or an exchange for goods (even abstract goods) falls outside of it. This only applies to donations; it's just that the internet has created this in-between category where "donations" are made to someone working on a product that can't really be "sold" in the traditional way, and the law doesn't have a proper carve-out for those cases.
  - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
    It was just a simple question.
ensignavenger 6y ago
Can you not do a "pay what you want" product? Here is this software which is open source. You can pay me what you want to for it- here's the link. The software (Or service in your case?) is the product.
- Ndymium 6y ago
  I'm not a lawyer so I don't know. I wouldn't risk it myself. Currently our air carrier Finnair is under investigation because they offered a climate compensation payment for flights. They say the payment went towards biofuel and other compensation methods but it's being investigated if it was considered a donation.[1] [1] https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/business/17392-finnair-discards-carbon-offset-scheme-due-to-inexplicable-ruling-by-police.html https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/business/17392-finnair-discards...
- stingraycharles 6y ago
  I think you’re thinking in the right direction. One could do some dual licensing, with a (slightly) different license. Eg BSD by default, and sponsors get the MIT license. Seems like there would be a clear value exchange here.
- spurdoman77 6y ago
  You can create that and I think in 99% percent of cases you can also collect github donations without problems in Finland. If it were to go in court I think it could be easily explained as non-donation because there is work performed. Also OPs explanation is not so straightforward, the money collection act is being contested all the time and many succeed in collecting money here.
  - Ndymium 6y ago
    Can you link sources to contesting it? I'm interested in learning what kind of things are approved.
    - spurdoman77 6y ago
      Basically you state that it isnt donation but payment for gig. Which would apply to github "donations" as well, they arent donations but payment for the open source work. Finnish peoples problem isnt the laws, but the fact that they are total pussies when it comes intrepreting the law.
qazpot 6y ago
> We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit That's what socialist policies gets you, permits from the state to do anything
- rocgf 6y ago
  It's really incredible how much the hatred for 'socialism' goes in certain circles.
  - qazpot 6y ago
    I am not hating on socialism. It has it's merits like providing healthcare if properly implemented but having excessive permits and licence is one of the facets of socialism. Socialism is not the perfect system.
    - maest 6y ago
      To be fair, all systems can be (and are) criticised.
      - jonfw 6y ago
        I agree. Given this truth, complaining that people complain about your system of choice seems pretty silly
    - elygre 6y ago
      The original comment read as if you blamed socialism. If you did, you got rightly called out. If you didn’t, then I don’t understand what you meant.
      - WC3w6pXxgGd 6y ago
        How is blaming socialism a bad thing? Has humanity learned nothing from the failure of socialism throughout the 19th and 20th centuries?
webmobdev 6y ago
> Even though people have been interested in donating, I can't do that legally. What you can do is to "sell" something in lieu of donations: E.g. - To support me please buy this wallpaper image file of my project logo. Or one-day email support etc. You can always add a note that Finland laws prevent you from accepting donation, and this is the only way you can accept money from patrons, and even provide a link to the law in question. (Note that depending on the laws in your country you may have to register as a freelancer / small business and pay taxes. In most countries this will be free or near free, and you probably won't get enough money to reach the threshold aftwer which you have to pay taxes).
- Ndymium 6y ago
  Sure and this is kind of what I do. I have a sole proprietorship and sell stickers and in the future some minor features on the site. Of course it has the overhead of setting up the business and all the accounting/tax stuff (unless you use a service for that which takes ~5 % of your revenue).
  - virgilp 6y ago
    But can't you sell your digital artwork without setting up business? Seems better than stickers (also, no shipping!). [*] Digital artwork = project logo in png format, free to use however they please. You can license the publicly-available logo with any minimally-restrictive license (e.g. CC-BY); this should still count that "you gave them additional rights, in exchange for payment".
    - notwhereyouare 6y ago
      tax reporting most likely
      - virgilp 6y ago
        I mean, yes you need to report revenues, but... do you need a company for that? Do e.g. all Finnish photographers on Shutterstock have a company, in order to receive payments?
_bxg1 6y ago
That's a strange law. I assume it serves some purpose (or must have served one when it was introduced, at least). What's the argument for it?
- claudeganon 6y ago
  The US has a lot of charity scams and dubious NPOs collecting cash. There’s news about fraudulent GoFundMe’s pretty regularly, for example. Finland is probably too far the opposite direction, but the whole sector could use a lot more scrutiny over here.
  - wnevets 6y ago
    It seems like a lot of charities in the US are just a way for the wealthy to avoid paying taxes or for the founders to become wealthy
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      Yes, it’s not uncommon to have do-nothing NPOs that associate themselves with a noble cause and then spend most of their funds on one or two people’s salaries and perks. This is why apps like Guidestar and Charity Navigator were invented. The IRS doesn’t seem to give these orgs much scrutiny unless they’re egregiously bad or become a big news story.
      - wnevets 6y ago
        The IRS has been co-opted by the very wealthy. The IRS spends way more resources auditing the very poor than the very wealthy
- TrackerFF 6y ago
  Grifters calling or walking door-to-door and asking for money, for some made-up charity or organization. Especially targeting older people. It's extremely frowned upon to begin with, but at least the laws make it illegal. (Not that it necessarily hinders those that really want to scam someone. Some of these BS "organizations" just contract their work to foreign call-centers. Every year a lot of young European people are lured to some low-cost country in southern Europe, where they'll have to work for some call-center at below minimum wage - and these centers will sometimes work for anyone...)
karambir 6y ago
The exact same thing is for India. Individuals can't get non-profit status. So you have to sell something. A software dev friend tried donate button with cta "Get exclusive support" for few months. But international audience didn't quite get it. I have seen some gamers in India asking for donations and giving direct account details(UPI[1] details), but I am very cautious against this. I am just waiting(selfishly) for Income Tax dept to serve notice to someone and get this clarified via court case. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface
- driverdan 6y ago
  Accepting sponsorships like this is not non-profit. You still have to report it as income and pay taxes on it.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    True donations are not taxable in the UK, because they are not part of a trade. In other words, they are not given in exchange for something; the something is freely given without the donation. Of course there is the question of whether something is truly a donation. But charities have to deal with that question, so there are formulaic approaches to it, and advisors. Sometimes the wording that accompanies a donation must be written carefully, to clarify what is and is not expected for it, because donations can be directed to a purpose, which isn't (apparently) the same as paying for something. I assume it's similar elsewhere?
    - thw0rted 6y ago
      "Tax-deductible donation" is a subset of "donations", at least in the US. I can "donate" (syn: "give") money to anyone. I don't have to do anything special for that, and in theory they should report it on their (personal) taxes as income. If I'm giving it to a registered charity (non-profit), I can deduct it as a donation on my taxes. Maybe that's part of why this piece generated so much discussion: for some, just the word "donation" carries certain connotations that others might not ascribe.
jcwayne 6y ago
IANAL (anywhere), but when you sponsor someone you're listed as a sponsor. I'd say that social credit has some intrinsic value.
zenhack 6y ago
Yeah, we have an active person in the Sandstorm community from Finland who maintains Wekan[1]. I didn't previously know the specifics, but he's had to tell a lot of people "sorry, I can't accept donations" too. It's so much easier in the US. If you're an individual it's going to be taxable income, but there's no up-front paperwork to do (for that matter, you don't have to "set up" a sole proprietorship here either -- that's just what the tax code calls "some rando doing business by themself"). I've done contract work for years, have a bit of my income coming in through GitHub sponsors now. Now, if we could only get health care covered for folks who don't have an employer... --- > I host a free project myself and I've had to set up a business (sole proprietorship) and sell things in order to get money for server costs. What's your side project? Speaking of Sandstorm, I'm wondering if it might be relevant; dealing with the problem of developers needing to monetize things in order to cover hosting costs was one of the motivations for the project: https://sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-require-federated-hosting https://sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-re... [1]: https://github.com/wekan/wekan/ https://github.com/wekan/wekan/
- Ndymium 6y ago
  My side project is a programming statistics service: https://codestats.net/ https://codestats.net/ It's mainly for fun and I want to keep it free, but of course I wouldn't mind if there was some money coming in to pay for the costs and motivate to work on it more. Currently I'm selling stickers and in the future I will implement some kind of paid accounts which will have some minor features that free accounts don't have – the dilemma is to keep it balanced so that free users don't feel second class.
- granos 6y ago
  If you haven't done so already, you REALLY should look into setting up an LLC for contract work in the US. Legally separating your business assets from your personal assets is very important. It doesn't cost a ton -- varies by state and whether you involve a lawyer or not. It will make your taxes a bit more complicated, but consider that the cost of insurance against somebody trying to sue you and take your house.
  - 6y ago
marcus_holmes 6y ago
Sell licenses. People can buy a licensed version of your project. It's exactly the same as the free version, but it comes with a different licence.txt (which allows the purchaser to say that they supported you). If you're not allowed to sell copyright licenses in Finland, then your whole software business is screwed.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  I don't even see the point. If there's no enforcement of this law, why even bother with the illusion of legality? Just accept donations - and likely no one will ever bother coming after you.
  - chrisandchips 6y ago
    Well, if they reach the 100k mark like the article’s author, the risk of a tax audit may start to keep them up at night
  - amelius 6y ago
    Well, GGP said that accepting donations costs money. So perhaps selling licenses is more profitable? Also, if you receive more than a few hundred dollars, perhaps the Finnish IRS will start noticing.
  - Ndymium 6y ago
    It's true that at my scale it would likely never be noticed. Personally I just don't like the risk even if small. But when looking at OP's case, that would absolutely be noticed by the tax authorities and they'd have to explain the nature of the income.
  - flurdy 6y ago
    Not sure you understand the Scandinavian/Nordic psyche. My non-Scandinavian girlfriend never understood why people pay for the bus there if they never get checked. Or why people bother to leave money in a little box at an unmanned coffee/waffle/etc stand in the middle of nowhere. But most do as it is the right thing to do, guilt free. And if there is a slight chance the tax authorities might contact him the guilt/embarrassment is worse than any token fine.
xigency 6y ago
What if donors are actually purchasing a spot on the contributions page? It would be like purchasing a classified ad in the paper or a normal internet ad. Their name or specific message would be displayed on the 'donations' page for a set duration. You might have to put some clarifying language on the page as well.
- thw0rted 6y ago
  I mean, you can "sell" anything. For $15/mo, I will say "thank you, [your name]" out loud to my cat. For $20/mo, I will give a thumbs-up to the tree in my front yard and think about what a great person you are. Is the government really in a position to tell me that those things aren't "worth" what I'm "charging"?
hkai 6y ago
"For each donated dollar, I will create and send you 100 random bytes that you can use in your cryptographic applications." $7 = 700 random bytes $15 = 1500 random bytes + 500 bytes free! $99 = lifetime* subscription for 25k random bytes per year * your lifetime or my lifetime, whichever terminates earlier
- duxup 6y ago
  Do you have any collectible limited edition bytes?
  - lstamour 6y ago
    Those would be the special one-of-a-kind bytes that we log to ensure no two people get the same bytes twice. Bonus: the logs are numbered, so we can validate those bytes. Downside: we’ll have to ask for a monthly donation to cover storing the bytes and bandwidth ;-)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - lifeformed 6y ago
    How about The Original: 00000000
  - Eli_P 6y ago
    High entropy edition: with RSA padding, signed by famous cryptographers.
- jeremysalwen 6y ago
  I'd buy the $99 option and use it as the trigger for my dead mans switch :).
- gumby 6y ago
  But do you warrant that they are actually random? Truth in advertising and all that.
- 6y ago
yason 6y ago
Interestingly, while you can't be donated money in Finland people can certainly and rather freely give gifts to another person. It's even tax-free as long as gifts from one person remain under 4000€ for any consecutive three years. Surely gettings lots of monetary gifts from foreign friends would probably not hold during a tax audit (they'd accuse you of trying to evade taxes unless you could provide a plausible reason why all these people would be sending you gifts) but it's an interesting counter-example nevertheless.
- tylerhou 6y ago
  (Not saying one country is better than the other but) in the US, there are no taxes on gifts until you gift more than $11 million in your life. If you go above $15,000 in any calendar year, you do have to notify the government, though.
- jsnell 6y ago
  The restriction isn't on receiving donations. It's on soliciting donations from the public.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > It's even tax-free as long as gifts from one person remain under 4000€ for any consecutive three years. Not something to be impressed by; gifts are tax free in the US under $15,000 per one year.
- thw0rted 6y ago
  I just commented above, but isn't this actually what's happening? I mean, isn't giving something of value to someone, and expecting nothing in return, the textbook definition of a "gift"? This feels more and more like something is getting lost in translation.
ct520 6y ago
In the states non-profit means a company that is not for profit. It doesn't mean you can't pay yourself a wage that is inline for the duties and title you have.
say_it_as_it_is 6y ago
There is an exchange here. Software is being provided in exchange for a discretionary payment.
rorykoehler 6y ago
I'll sell you a pixel for $10
clan 6y ago
That is a very interesting interpretation of the law. Another would be to regard such a construct as income. Report your income. Pay your taxes and be happy. It only becomes "gray" areas when people think it is possible to have non-taxed revenue streams.
- icebraining 6y ago
  > It only becomes "gray" areas when people think it is possible to have non-taxed revenue streams. This may be true in some countries, but it's definitively not an universal truth. Some business models are not allowed even if you pay taxes on the income. This is what the user is describing, and reading the (English translation) of the text of the Act, I'd be worried too.
gardaani 6y ago
In Finland, a new law was made to allow small-scale money collection up to EUR 10000, but it has also other restrictions, so it may not help you: https://intermin.fi/en/police/fundraising https://intermin.fi/en/police/fundraising
- Ndymium 6y ago
  Cool I didn't know that. It does say that it's not for business purposes or accumulating "wealth" of a person but it's nice to learn.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bunje 6y ago
You can accept a gift. It's also possible for someone to give a grant. But I'm not sure how they would work out in case of open source. I know that people write books using a grant.
- Ndymium 6y ago
  The thing about gifts is that the person wishing to give one needs to ask proactively how to do it and then you can give e.g. your bank account details to that person only. You cannot put your bank account or instructions how to ask publicly available. Years ago we asked about this from the authorities when I was in a non-profit and this was the answer.
suifbwish 6y ago
This is exactly the kind of problems cryptocurrency was made to address. I would just say each donation comes with a postcard so you are giving them something in return. If my government ever tries to do something like this, I will leave it up to them to figure out that I’m collecting donations.
- M2Ys4U 6y ago
  That sounds like a very quick way to get a tax evasion charge...
  - suifbwish 6y ago
    Right. It must be such fun trying to figure that out from the monero block chain...
andy_ppp 6y ago
Write to your member of parliament and explain why you think it's terrible you can't just add these sort of extra earnings to your tax assessment at the end of the year. It's certainly possible in the UK to operate in this way but also more tax efficient once you get past say £40000 to run a limited company.
imjustsaying 6y ago
Yo send this thread to your representatives. They may help change the law. They're leaving GDP on the table
xparco 6y ago
You live in a welfare state...
morpheuskafka 6y ago
What a joke. Here in the US, as long as you don't give over $15,000 per year to a given individual, you don't have any tax or reporting obligations.
httpsterio 6y ago
As a fellow Finn who is also on Github sponsors, you would be correct if this would constitute as collecting money. Earnings through Github sponsors go through Stripe and have to be declared as income and is taxed as such. You have to fill out your tax information to get an North American tax card and after that, it's basically identical to income you get from abroad.
conductr 6y ago
Write a haiku and make that the "reward" part of your project?
qat-farmer 6y ago
That is draconian
raxxorrax 6y ago
Couldn't you circumvent that by selling a really expensive bowl of fish soup or something like that? Or just say that you prostituted yourself? That you would need to open a business is probably something most countries require though.
poulsbohemian 6y ago
What was the justification behind this law? Was it meant as some kind of consumer protection?

zucker42 6y ago

What is the ostensible purpose behind that law? Seems like something you could get changed (with considerable effort) considering there appear to be no strong interests who benefit from it.

rverghese 6y ago
People pretending to be charities and scamming donations. The idea would be that all legitimate charities are registered and have a permit. If they don't, it's likely a scam.
Ndymium 6y ago
I think it's originally to prevent scammers. Like if someone was collecting money door-to-door and then said that people willingly donated to them (which would be true). I think it's just to add oversight into those kind of situations and to prevent scam money collection campaigns.

AlchemistCamp 6y ago

How common are bootstrapped (i.e. non-wealthy, non VC-funded) entrepreneurs in Finland?

spurdoman77 6y ago
Common. It is a capitalist, moderately wealthy country.
_bxg1 6y ago
From what I can tell this has nothing to do with that. Anything that could be considered commerce or an exchange for goods (even abstract goods) falls outside of it. This only applies to donations; it's just that the internet has created this in-between category where "donations" are made to someone working on a product that can't really be "sold" in the traditional way, and the law doesn't have a proper carve-out for those cases.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  It was just a simple question.

ensignavenger 6y ago

Can you not do a "pay what you want" product? Here is this software which is open source. You can pay me what you want to for it- here's the link. The software (Or service in your case?) is the product.

Ndymium 6y ago
I'm not a lawyer so I don't know. I wouldn't risk it myself. Currently our air carrier Finnair is under investigation because they offered a climate compensation payment for flights. They say the payment went towards biofuel and other compensation methods but it's being investigated if it was considered a donation.[1] [1] https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/business/17392-finnair-discards-carbon-offset-scheme-due-to-inexplicable-ruling-by-police.html https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/business/17392-finnair-discards...
stingraycharles 6y ago
I think you’re thinking in the right direction. One could do some dual licensing, with a (slightly) different license. Eg BSD by default, and sponsors get the MIT license. Seems like there would be a clear value exchange here.
spurdoman77 6y ago
You can create that and I think in 99% percent of cases you can also collect github donations without problems in Finland. If it were to go in court I think it could be easily explained as non-donation because there is work performed. Also OPs explanation is not so straightforward, the money collection act is being contested all the time and many succeed in collecting money here.
- Ndymium 6y ago
  Can you link sources to contesting it? I'm interested in learning what kind of things are approved.
  - spurdoman77 6y ago
    Basically you state that it isnt donation but payment for gig. Which would apply to github "donations" as well, they arent donations but payment for the open source work. Finnish peoples problem isnt the laws, but the fact that they are total pussies when it comes intrepreting the law.

qazpot 6y ago

> We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit That's what socialist policies gets you, permits from the state to do anything

rocgf 6y ago
It's really incredible how much the hatred for 'socialism' goes in certain circles.
- qazpot 6y ago
  I am not hating on socialism. It has it's merits like providing healthcare if properly implemented but having excessive permits and licence is one of the facets of socialism. Socialism is not the perfect system.
  - maest 6y ago
    To be fair, all systems can be (and are) criticised.
    - jonfw 6y ago
      I agree. Given this truth, complaining that people complain about your system of choice seems pretty silly
  - elygre 6y ago
    The original comment read as if you blamed socialism. If you did, you got rightly called out. If you didn’t, then I don’t understand what you meant.
    - WC3w6pXxgGd 6y ago
      How is blaming socialism a bad thing? Has humanity learned nothing from the failure of socialism throughout the 19th and 20th centuries?

webmobdev 6y ago

> Even though people have been interested in donating, I can't do that legally. What you can do is to "sell" something in lieu of donations: E.g. - To support me please buy this wallpaper image file of my project logo. Or one-day email support etc. You can always add a note that Finland laws prevent you from accepting donation, and this is the only way you can accept money from patrons, and even provide a link to the law in question. (Note that depending on the laws in your country you may have to register as a freelancer / small business and pay taxes. In most countries this will be free or near free, and you probably won't get enough money to reach the threshold aftwer which you have to pay taxes).

Ndymium 6y ago
Sure and this is kind of what I do. I have a sole proprietorship and sell stickers and in the future some minor features on the site. Of course it has the overhead of setting up the business and all the accounting/tax stuff (unless you use a service for that which takes ~5 % of your revenue).
- virgilp 6y ago
  But can't you sell your digital artwork without setting up business? Seems better than stickers (also, no shipping!). [*] Digital artwork = project logo in png format, free to use however they please. You can license the publicly-available logo with any minimally-restrictive license (e.g. CC-BY); this should still count that "you gave them additional rights, in exchange for payment".
  - notwhereyouare 6y ago
    tax reporting most likely
    - virgilp 6y ago
      I mean, yes you need to report revenues, but... do you need a company for that? Do e.g. all Finnish photographers on Shutterstock have a company, in order to receive payments?

_bxg1 6y ago

That's a strange law. I assume it serves some purpose (or must have served one when it was introduced, at least). What's the argument for it?

claudeganon 6y ago
The US has a lot of charity scams and dubious NPOs collecting cash. There’s news about fraudulent GoFundMe’s pretty regularly, for example. Finland is probably too far the opposite direction, but the whole sector could use a lot more scrutiny over here.
- wnevets 6y ago
  It seems like a lot of charities in the US are just a way for the wealthy to avoid paying taxes or for the founders to become wealthy
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    Yes, it’s not uncommon to have do-nothing NPOs that associate themselves with a noble cause and then spend most of their funds on one or two people’s salaries and perks. This is why apps like Guidestar and Charity Navigator were invented. The IRS doesn’t seem to give these orgs much scrutiny unless they’re egregiously bad or become a big news story.
    - wnevets 6y ago
      The IRS has been co-opted by the very wealthy. The IRS spends way more resources auditing the very poor than the very wealthy
TrackerFF 6y ago
Grifters calling or walking door-to-door and asking for money, for some made-up charity or organization. Especially targeting older people. It's extremely frowned upon to begin with, but at least the laws make it illegal. (Not that it necessarily hinders those that really want to scam someone. Some of these BS "organizations" just contract their work to foreign call-centers. Every year a lot of young European people are lured to some low-cost country in southern Europe, where they'll have to work for some call-center at below minimum wage - and these centers will sometimes work for anyone...)

karambir 6y ago

The exact same thing is for India. Individuals can't get non-profit status. So you have to sell something. A software dev friend tried donate button with cta "Get exclusive support" for few months. But international audience didn't quite get it. I have seen some gamers in India asking for donations and giving direct account details(UPI[1] details), but I am very cautious against this. I am just waiting(selfishly) for Income Tax dept to serve notice to someone and get this clarified via court case. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface

driverdan 6y ago
Accepting sponsorships like this is not non-profit. You still have to report it as income and pay taxes on it.
- jlokier 6y ago
  True donations are not taxable in the UK, because they are not part of a trade. In other words, they are not given in exchange for something; the something is freely given without the donation. Of course there is the question of whether something is truly a donation. But charities have to deal with that question, so there are formulaic approaches to it, and advisors. Sometimes the wording that accompanies a donation must be written carefully, to clarify what is and is not expected for it, because donations can be directed to a purpose, which isn't (apparently) the same as paying for something. I assume it's similar elsewhere?
  - thw0rted 6y ago
    "Tax-deductible donation" is a subset of "donations", at least in the US. I can "donate" (syn: "give") money to anyone. I don't have to do anything special for that, and in theory they should report it on their (personal) taxes as income. If I'm giving it to a registered charity (non-profit), I can deduct it as a donation on my taxes. Maybe that's part of why this piece generated so much discussion: for some, just the word "donation" carries certain connotations that others might not ascribe.

jcwayne 6y ago

IANAL (anywhere), but when you sponsor someone you're listed as a sponsor. I'd say that social credit has some intrinsic value.

zenhack 6y ago

Yeah, we have an active person in the Sandstorm community from Finland who maintains Wekan[1]. I didn't previously know the specifics, but he's had to tell a lot of people "sorry, I can't accept donations" too. It's so much easier in the US. If you're an individual it's going to be taxable income, but there's no up-front paperwork to do (for that matter, you don't have to "set up" a sole proprietorship here either -- that's just what the tax code calls "some rando doing business by themself"). I've done contract work for years, have a bit of my income coming in through GitHub sponsors now. Now, if we could only get health care covered for folks who don't have an employer... --- > I host a free project myself and I've had to set up a business (sole proprietorship) and sell things in order to get money for server costs. What's your side project? Speaking of Sandstorm, I'm wondering if it might be relevant; dealing with the problem of developers needing to monetize things in order to cover hosting costs was one of the motivations for the project: https://sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-require-federated-hosting https://sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-re... [1]: https://github.com/wekan/wekan/ https://github.com/wekan/wekan/

Ndymium 6y ago
My side project is a programming statistics service: https://codestats.net/ https://codestats.net/ It's mainly for fun and I want to keep it free, but of course I wouldn't mind if there was some money coming in to pay for the costs and motivate to work on it more. Currently I'm selling stickers and in the future I will implement some kind of paid accounts which will have some minor features that free accounts don't have – the dilemma is to keep it balanced so that free users don't feel second class.
granos 6y ago
If you haven't done so already, you REALLY should look into setting up an LLC for contract work in the US. Legally separating your business assets from your personal assets is very important. It doesn't cost a ton -- varies by state and whether you involve a lawyer or not. It will make your taxes a bit more complicated, but consider that the cost of insurance against somebody trying to sue you and take your house.
- 6y ago

marcus_holmes 6y ago

Sell licenses. People can buy a licensed version of your project. It's exactly the same as the free version, but it comes with a different licence.txt (which allows the purchaser to say that they supported you). If you're not allowed to sell copyright licenses in Finland, then your whole software business is screwed.

koheripbal 6y ago
I don't even see the point. If there's no enforcement of this law, why even bother with the illusion of legality? Just accept donations - and likely no one will ever bother coming after you.
- chrisandchips 6y ago
  Well, if they reach the 100k mark like the article’s author, the risk of a tax audit may start to keep them up at night
- amelius 6y ago
  Well, GGP said that accepting donations costs money. So perhaps selling licenses is more profitable? Also, if you receive more than a few hundred dollars, perhaps the Finnish IRS will start noticing.
- Ndymium 6y ago
  It's true that at my scale it would likely never be noticed. Personally I just don't like the risk even if small. But when looking at OP's case, that would absolutely be noticed by the tax authorities and they'd have to explain the nature of the income.
- flurdy 6y ago
  Not sure you understand the Scandinavian/Nordic psyche. My non-Scandinavian girlfriend never understood why people pay for the bus there if they never get checked. Or why people bother to leave money in a little box at an unmanned coffee/waffle/etc stand in the middle of nowhere. But most do as it is the right thing to do, guilt free. And if there is a slight chance the tax authorities might contact him the guilt/embarrassment is worse than any token fine.

xigency 6y ago

What if donors are actually purchasing a spot on the contributions page? It would be like purchasing a classified ad in the paper or a normal internet ad. Their name or specific message would be displayed on the 'donations' page for a set duration. You might have to put some clarifying language on the page as well.

thw0rted 6y ago
I mean, you can "sell" anything. For $15/mo, I will say "thank you, [your name]" out loud to my cat. For $20/mo, I will give a thumbs-up to the tree in my front yard and think about what a great person you are. Is the government really in a position to tell me that those things aren't "worth" what I'm "charging"?

hkai 6y ago

"For each donated dollar, I will create and send you 100 random bytes that you can use in your cryptographic applications." $7 = 700 random bytes $15 = 1500 random bytes + 500 bytes free! $99 = lifetime* subscription for 25k random bytes per year * your lifetime or my lifetime, whichever terminates earlier

duxup 6y ago
Do you have any collectible limited edition bytes?
- lstamour 6y ago
  Those would be the special one-of-a-kind bytes that we log to ensure no two people get the same bytes twice. Bonus: the logs are numbered, so we can validate those bytes. Downside: we’ll have to ask for a monthly donation to cover storing the bytes and bandwidth ;-)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- lifeformed 6y ago
  How about The Original: 00000000
- Eli_P 6y ago
  High entropy edition: with RSA padding, signed by famous cryptographers.
jeremysalwen 6y ago
I'd buy the $99 option and use it as the trigger for my dead mans switch :).
gumby 6y ago
But do you warrant that they are actually random? Truth in advertising and all that.
6y ago

yason 6y ago

Interestingly, while you can't be donated money in Finland people can certainly and rather freely give gifts to another person. It's even tax-free as long as gifts from one person remain under 4000€ for any consecutive three years. Surely gettings lots of monetary gifts from foreign friends would probably not hold during a tax audit (they'd accuse you of trying to evade taxes unless you could provide a plausible reason why all these people would be sending you gifts) but it's an interesting counter-example nevertheless.

tylerhou 6y ago
(Not saying one country is better than the other but) in the US, there are no taxes on gifts until you gift more than $11 million in your life. If you go above $15,000 in any calendar year, you do have to notify the government, though.
jsnell 6y ago
The restriction isn't on receiving donations. It's on soliciting donations from the public.
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> It's even tax-free as long as gifts from one person remain under 4000€ for any consecutive three years. Not something to be impressed by; gifts are tax free in the US under $15,000 per one year.
thw0rted 6y ago
I just commented above, but isn't this actually what's happening? I mean, isn't giving something of value to someone, and expecting nothing in return, the textbook definition of a "gift"? This feels more and more like something is getting lost in translation.

ct520 6y ago

In the states non-profit means a company that is not for profit. It doesn't mean you can't pay yourself a wage that is inline for the duties and title you have.

say_it_as_it_is 6y ago

There is an exchange here. Software is being provided in exchange for a discretionary payment.

rorykoehler 6y ago

I'll sell you a pixel for $10

clan 6y ago

That is a very interesting interpretation of the law. Another would be to regard such a construct as income. Report your income. Pay your taxes and be happy. It only becomes "gray" areas when people think it is possible to have non-taxed revenue streams.

icebraining 6y ago
> It only becomes "gray" areas when people think it is possible to have non-taxed revenue streams. This may be true in some countries, but it's definitively not an universal truth. Some business models are not allowed even if you pay taxes on the income. This is what the user is describing, and reading the (English translation) of the text of the Act, I'd be worried too.

gardaani 6y ago

In Finland, a new law was made to allow small-scale money collection up to EUR 10000, but it has also other restrictions, so it may not help you: https://intermin.fi/en/police/fundraising https://intermin.fi/en/police/fundraising

Ndymium 6y ago
Cool I didn't know that. It does say that it's not for business purposes or accumulating "wealth" of a person but it's nice to learn.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bunje 6y ago

You can accept a gift. It's also possible for someone to give a grant. But I'm not sure how they would work out in case of open source. I know that people write books using a grant.

Ndymium 6y ago
The thing about gifts is that the person wishing to give one needs to ask proactively how to do it and then you can give e.g. your bank account details to that person only. You cannot put your bank account or instructions how to ask publicly available. Years ago we asked about this from the authorities when I was in a non-profit and this was the answer.

suifbwish 6y ago

This is exactly the kind of problems cryptocurrency was made to address. I would just say each donation comes with a postcard so you are giving them something in return. If my government ever tries to do something like this, I will leave it up to them to figure out that I’m collecting donations.

M2Ys4U 6y ago
That sounds like a very quick way to get a tax evasion charge...
- suifbwish 6y ago
  Right. It must be such fun trying to figure that out from the monero block chain...

andy_ppp 6y ago

Write to your member of parliament and explain why you think it's terrible you can't just add these sort of extra earnings to your tax assessment at the end of the year. It's certainly possible in the UK to operate in this way but also more tax efficient once you get past say £40000 to run a limited company.

imjustsaying 6y ago

Yo send this thread to your representatives. They may help change the law. They're leaving GDP on the table

xparco 6y ago

You live in a welfare state...

morpheuskafka 6y ago

What a joke. Here in the US, as long as you don't give over $15,000 per year to a given individual, you don't have any tax or reporting obligations.

httpsterio 6y ago

As a fellow Finn who is also on Github sponsors, you would be correct if this would constitute as collecting money. Earnings through Github sponsors go through Stripe and have to be declared as income and is taxed as such. You have to fill out your tax information to get an North American tax card and after that, it's basically identical to income you get from abroad.

conductr 6y ago

Write a haiku and make that the "reward" part of your project?

qat-farmer 6y ago

That is draconian

raxxorrax 6y ago

Couldn't you circumvent that by selling a really expensive bowl of fish soup or something like that? Or just say that you prostituted yourself? That you would need to open a business is probably something most countries require though.

poulsbohemian 6y ago

What was the justification behind this law? Was it meant as some kind of consumer protection?