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> 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
by 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 agoSure 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 agoBut 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 agotax reporting most likely
- virgilp 6y agoI 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?
- Erlich_Bachman 6y agoYes, if you sell things (or electronic things), in any meaningful amount (no one will care for 200$ per year though), you have to set up a company or a sole proprietorship. It is like this in most western countries. The activity that you are doing in that case is called business, and of course you need to have a company or a similar business structure (like sole proprietorship) to do business. Whether all people do it or not is another question, but that is what is required by the law.
- wongarsu 6y agoI think the confusion in this thread is that (in most of Western Europe) you automatically become a business (or even company) by the sole act of doing "business" (enterprise with the purpose of earning money), and once you cross some (small) threshold you have to register in some capacity. That can be a ~$20 bureaucratic act, compared to the ~$500 act of setting up a proper company. But of course at that point it varies wildly by country.
- maxwelljoslyn 6y agoThank you for explaining this. As an American, I was unaware.
- vajrabum 6y agoYou can take donations but AFAIK business licenses are required in every state in the US whether you provide product, service or something online. If you take donations then by law you have to declare that as income.
- LyndsySimon 6y agoThere is no generally “business license” in Arkansas. Some municipalities require them (but have very limited means of enforcing that requirement), and some specific occupations require licensure, but unless you fall under one of those narrow categories you only have to file taxes.
- MKinley 6y agoCould you share a link to your project? I'm curious what it is.
- Ndymium 6y agoI commented on it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23616644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23616644
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoIs it illegal if you sell an item/service/upgrade for a clearly absurd price? The obvious workaround here is to paywall some tiny feature with choose-your-own-price, or perhaps offer something akin to Reddit Gold. I presume the law already thought of that?
- wongarsu 6y agoLots of brands sell things with prices only justifiable by the branding and associated prestige. The authors tactic of paywalling things behind a "donation" seems legally much more dubious.
- Ndymium 6y agoIt wouldn't be a donation, it would be a premium account that has access to extra features. I just don't want those features to make the free users feel second class.
- rmc 6y agoSurely there's a difference between ”Buy this PNG file for €200” and “Buy it for €10,000,000”