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How can there be taxation consequences unless you act to set up a bitcoin address and accept the offered tip? If you've done all that, I think it's clear you k

How can there be taxation consequences unless you act to set up a bitcoin address and accept the offered tip? If you've done all that, I think it's clear you know what you're doing. If you don't do that, then the money (apparently?) returns to the project you committed to, from whence it came. The only way there could be tax is if you receive the money, and that can only happen by you deliberately becoming involved.

hack_edu 12y ago
People have legitimate reasons to avoid messing with BTC or others. Some people don't even want to hassle with currencies beyond their own. Even if they oblige in accepting BTC and just convert it to their preferred currency, they'd be forced to go through the process of signing up and verifying with some sort of exchange. What if they don't want to do business with those institutions, or share their financial details to yet another third-party? Cryptocurrencies will succeed, thankfully, but some people don't want to put their toes in those legal waters yet. They will also have to spend more time administering to local laws and taxes regarding donations, which eats away the time they have for other much more fun things.
- Blahah 12y ago
  Nobody is being forced to accept the money, and therefore nobody is being forced to interact with bitcoin. The money is there if they want to claim it. If not, no problem, they can just ignore it in which case it doesn't affect them.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - hack_edu 12y ago
    Would the project be sustainable, or more fair, if it allowed project maintainers to whitelist currencies, and manage that integration for them? That seems more appropriate and follows the the spirit of giving that the project encourages.
    - exo762 12y ago
      Tip4commit using USD? Bitcoin is hasslefree. If you want tip4commit to use USD or gold or any other silly thing - go for it. Clone tip4commit, put all integration in place, see payment systems eating 30-40% of your donations.
      - hack_edu 12y ago
        OK, so yes. We agree that it is unsustainable if the effort is put forth to make your product actually convenient for the volunteers whose shoulders you sit on. Meanwhile you insult us by simply saying "fork it." That doesn't get money donated on my behalf out of your Bitcoin wallet. I suggest y'all stop bickering and actually start helping. The burden to clean up your oversights is on no one but yourself. We know you built the project in good faith, but it needs serious tweaks. At this point you're being a nuisance, at best, to the very creators of projects your site is deployed upon! If they were in your situation they would have fixed this, shipped it, and have written a detailed postmortem by now.
- eordano 12y ago
  I feel like we shouldn't miss the point here: you can't impersonate me and take donations in my name without my consent, no matter the currency (or regulations or whatever) being used. Make it opt-in, not "opted in by default and no way to opt out".
  - arsenische 12y ago
    We don't impersonate anybody. We just provide additional way to reward project's contributors and perhaps attract more of them. We'll make it more explicit with https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/136 https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/136
    - hack_edu 12y ago
      Firstly, you need to make abundantly obvious and clear promises as to what happens to money left it accounts. There is no reason to trust your escrow, let alone your ability to manage or secure it. I honestly still can't find it spelled out clearly, and even then it'd be hard to trust. I suggest you pull your site before this PR gets even further out of hand, then reboot. If you continue to pursue your project, partner with a couple projects that opt-in (free publicity for you both) and work to their needs. Once you have things in order, then you can think about something more automated.
Erwin 12y ago
Consider this: you are in a high-tax country and have some incoming lucrative income. Instead of receiving that income and paying the tax, the company sends you an email saying: Here's a $100,000, come get if you want, but you don't have to! It's a tip! It'll get donated to MSF in a few years. Wink, wink. You put in your income for the year as $0 (not having accepted this tip), and leave for the Seyschelles, where suddenly you come upon this email (you didn't check your Spam folder until then) and claim your now tax-free $100,000.
- randallsquared 12y ago
  Sure, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance . Various strategies to reduce income in one year or jurisdiction and apply it to another are widespread, and I'm not sure why this would be different. I am not a lawyer, though. The "It's a tip!" nature of this seems irrelevant to taxes: either you accept it or you don't, and if you do, you may or may not be required to pay taxes on it, depending on laws that are applied to you.
- bewaretheirs 12y ago
  in the US the key event is when the income becomes available to you, not when you collect it. The proper thing to do in your hypothetical case (where you didn't see the message until well into the next tax year) would be to file an amended return for the previous year declaring the recently discovered income.
exDM69 12y ago
> How can there be taxation consequences unless ... Tax? Perhaps not, but the OP was talking about tax and other legal consequences. These can vary wildly from country to country. My local legislation requires applying for a permit before asking for donations. If a 3rd party would add my projects to this website, I could face criminal charges and the proof of burden would be on me.
- hippich 12y ago
  you say 'before _collecting_ donations'. just don't _collect_ if you don't want to.
  - keithpeter 12y ago
    soliciting contributions in UK. Moot point as to how someone else soliciting a contribution on your behalf without your permission is seen. I think that people who set Web services up really need to think about what territory the service is designed to operate in and which legal system(s) they have the time and resources to examine.
    - arsenische 12y ago
      we are not collecting or soliciting a contribution on someone's behalf.
      - hack_edu 12y ago
        Could you add a few more words to explain your interpretations of those terms in practice here? The rest of the folks in the thread and on the Github issue are exploring what those terms mean. I'm not seeing you provide much insight or rationale into your interpretations beyond a simple "No, we are not."
      - keithpeter 12y ago
        How are we failing to make clear the reasons behind the reaction to your work? How are we failing to make clear the various suggestions for making your work actually useful instead of potentially harmful to the projects you claim to be trying to help?
ubernostrum 12y ago
To take some examples: * In some countries it is illegal to opt someone into services they didn't ask for. * In some countries it is illegal to send unsolicited emails about services. * In some countries it is illegal to accept or solicit donations without registering first with tax authorities. * In some countries it is illegal to suggest a financial relationship between yourself and another person/entity when no such relationship exists. * In some countries it is illegal to pay out to people without also filing tax documents to track the payment and provide the recipient with records they legally are required to keep. etc., etc. Their track record when confronted by people who have issues with some/all of the above is not encouraging. They appear to me to be putting far too much faith in "we're doing BitCoin on the internet" as a magic shield against laws, and they do not appear to have ever talked to anyone who knows even the tax or service laws of even major countries in which the developers they solicit on "behalf" of live (evidenced by comments from them that they are too small to afford lawyers).
- exo762 12y ago
  > In some countries it is illegal to opt someone into services they didn't ask for. Nope. You are not a part of service unless you accept the tip. > In some countries it is illegal to send unsolicited emails about services. True that. This should probably be fixed. > In some countries it is illegal to accept or solicit donations without registering first with tax authorities. Donation does not exist unless you accept that bitcoin. This is not a problem of tip4commit. It's a problem between country and it's tax resident. > In some countries it is illegal to suggest a financial relationship between yourself and another person/entity when no such relationship exists. Once again. Relationship does not exist unless you've created it by accepting that tip. As for suggestion - they are only suggesting that you can create such relationship. > In some countries it is illegal to pay out to people without also filing tax documents to track the payment and provide the recipient with records they legally are required to keep. PEBCATR - Problem exists between country and tax resident. If those are really problems - you have problem with your gov and your laws, not bitcoin or tip4commit.
  - ubernostrum 12y ago
amalcon 12y ago
So if I don't want to accept the taxation consequences, the shady project gets to use my name to raise money? There is no response I can have that doesn't have some cost to me.
bewaretheirs 12y ago
In the US, if a payment is "available" to you, it must be reported as income at the time it becomes available. Failure to cash a paycheck doesn't mean you don't owe tax on it. See IRS publication 525, page 2, "constructively received income": http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p525.pdf http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p525.pdf There's some fuzziness and legal room here but the safe thing would be to declare it as income.
- zaroth 12y ago
  Yes, it's true you're supposed to pay taxes for money earned in the year it was earned, not just when you happened to deposit the check. That has little to no bearing for this situation. First, the money isn't available since it hasn't even been sent to you. Until you sign-up for the service, and provide a bitcoin address for the funds to be sent to your private key, they are not available. But more importantly, since you have no business relationship with the person giving the money, I would think the best characterization for the income is a tax-free gift (up to $14,000 per giver). But IANAL, and this isn't tax advice.
  - eli 12y ago
    Either the service is just funneling money to software authors, or they are collecting it themselves and holding it unless and until authors want it. So if it's the latter, then they are raising money using someone else's name and reputation. Either way, that's not at all cool.
- isgood12 12y ago
  That makes absolutely no sense to me. If I get an offer from a bank that $200 is available to me if I open a checking account with them, then do I have to report it as income even if I don't open an account or perform any action to go after it?
  - zorpner 12y ago
    The money is not available to you if you receive a contingent offer. Once you accept the offer then the money becomes available to you.

hack_edu 12y ago

People have legitimate reasons to avoid messing with BTC or others. Some people don't even want to hassle with currencies beyond their own. Even if they oblige in accepting BTC and just convert it to their preferred currency, they'd be forced to go through the process of signing up and verifying with some sort of exchange. What if they don't want to do business with those institutions, or share their financial details to yet another third-party? Cryptocurrencies will succeed, thankfully, but some people don't want to put their toes in those legal waters yet. They will also have to spend more time administering to local laws and taxes regarding donations, which eats away the time they have for other much more fun things.

Blahah 12y ago
Nobody is being forced to accept the money, and therefore nobody is being forced to interact with bitcoin. The money is there if they want to claim it. If not, no problem, they can just ignore it in which case it doesn't affect them.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- hack_edu 12y ago
  Would the project be sustainable, or more fair, if it allowed project maintainers to whitelist currencies, and manage that integration for them? That seems more appropriate and follows the the spirit of giving that the project encourages.
  - exo762 12y ago
    Tip4commit using USD? Bitcoin is hasslefree. If you want tip4commit to use USD or gold or any other silly thing - go for it. Clone tip4commit, put all integration in place, see payment systems eating 30-40% of your donations.
    - hack_edu 12y ago
      OK, so yes. We agree that it is unsustainable if the effort is put forth to make your product actually convenient for the volunteers whose shoulders you sit on. Meanwhile you insult us by simply saying "fork it." That doesn't get money donated on my behalf out of your Bitcoin wallet. I suggest y'all stop bickering and actually start helping. The burden to clean up your oversights is on no one but yourself. We know you built the project in good faith, but it needs serious tweaks. At this point you're being a nuisance, at best, to the very creators of projects your site is deployed upon! If they were in your situation they would have fixed this, shipped it, and have written a detailed postmortem by now.
eordano 12y ago
I feel like we shouldn't miss the point here: you can't impersonate me and take donations in my name without my consent, no matter the currency (or regulations or whatever) being used. Make it opt-in, not "opted in by default and no way to opt out".
- arsenische 12y ago
  We don't impersonate anybody. We just provide additional way to reward project's contributors and perhaps attract more of them. We'll make it more explicit with https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/136 https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/136
  - hack_edu 12y ago
    Firstly, you need to make abundantly obvious and clear promises as to what happens to money left it accounts. There is no reason to trust your escrow, let alone your ability to manage or secure it. I honestly still can't find it spelled out clearly, and even then it'd be hard to trust. I suggest you pull your site before this PR gets even further out of hand, then reboot. If you continue to pursue your project, partner with a couple projects that opt-in (free publicity for you both) and work to their needs. Once you have things in order, then you can think about something more automated.

Erwin 12y ago

Consider this: you are in a high-tax country and have some incoming lucrative income. Instead of receiving that income and paying the tax, the company sends you an email saying: Here's a $100,000, come get if you want, but you don't have to! It's a tip! It'll get donated to MSF in a few years. Wink, wink. You put in your income for the year as $0 (not having accepted this tip), and leave for the Seyschelles, where suddenly you come upon this email (you didn't check your Spam folder until then) and claim your now tax-free $100,000.

randallsquared 12y ago
Sure, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance . Various strategies to reduce income in one year or jurisdiction and apply it to another are widespread, and I'm not sure why this would be different. I am not a lawyer, though. The "It's a tip!" nature of this seems irrelevant to taxes: either you accept it or you don't, and if you do, you may or may not be required to pay taxes on it, depending on laws that are applied to you.
bewaretheirs 12y ago
in the US the key event is when the income becomes available to you, not when you collect it. The proper thing to do in your hypothetical case (where you didn't see the message until well into the next tax year) would be to file an amended return for the previous year declaring the recently discovered income.

exDM69 12y ago

> How can there be taxation consequences unless ... Tax? Perhaps not, but the OP was talking about tax and other legal consequences. These can vary wildly from country to country. My local legislation requires applying for a permit before asking for donations. If a 3rd party would add my projects to this website, I could face criminal charges and the proof of burden would be on me.

hippich 12y ago
you say 'before _collecting_ donations'. just don't _collect_ if you don't want to.
- keithpeter 12y ago
  soliciting contributions in UK. Moot point as to how someone else soliciting a contribution on your behalf without your permission is seen. I think that people who set Web services up really need to think about what territory the service is designed to operate in and which legal system(s) they have the time and resources to examine.
  - arsenische 12y ago
    we are not collecting or soliciting a contribution on someone's behalf.
    - hack_edu 12y ago
      Could you add a few more words to explain your interpretations of those terms in practice here? The rest of the folks in the thread and on the Github issue are exploring what those terms mean. I'm not seeing you provide much insight or rationale into your interpretations beyond a simple "No, we are not."
    - keithpeter 12y ago
      How are we failing to make clear the reasons behind the reaction to your work? How are we failing to make clear the various suggestions for making your work actually useful instead of potentially harmful to the projects you claim to be trying to help?

ubernostrum 12y ago

To take some examples: * In some countries it is illegal to opt someone into services they didn't ask for. * In some countries it is illegal to send unsolicited emails about services. * In some countries it is illegal to accept or solicit donations without registering first with tax authorities. * In some countries it is illegal to suggest a financial relationship between yourself and another person/entity when no such relationship exists. * In some countries it is illegal to pay out to people without also filing tax documents to track the payment and provide the recipient with records they legally are required to keep. etc., etc. Their track record when confronted by people who have issues with some/all of the above is not encouraging. They appear to me to be putting far too much faith in "we're doing BitCoin on the internet" as a magic shield against laws, and they do not appear to have ever talked to anyone who knows even the tax or service laws of even major countries in which the developers they solicit on "behalf" of live (evidenced by comments from them that they are too small to afford lawyers).

exo762 12y ago
> In some countries it is illegal to opt someone into services they didn't ask for. Nope. You are not a part of service unless you accept the tip. > In some countries it is illegal to send unsolicited emails about services. True that. This should probably be fixed. > In some countries it is illegal to accept or solicit donations without registering first with tax authorities. Donation does not exist unless you accept that bitcoin. This is not a problem of tip4commit. It's a problem between country and it's tax resident. > In some countries it is illegal to suggest a financial relationship between yourself and another person/entity when no such relationship exists. Once again. Relationship does not exist unless you've created it by accepting that tip. As for suggestion - they are only suggesting that you can create such relationship. > In some countries it is illegal to pay out to people without also filing tax documents to track the payment and provide the recipient with records they legally are required to keep. PEBCATR - Problem exists between country and tax resident. If those are really problems - you have problem with your gov and your laws, not bitcoin or tip4commit.
- ubernostrum 12y ago

amalcon 12y ago

So if I don't want to accept the taxation consequences, the shady project gets to use my name to raise money? There is no response I can have that doesn't have some cost to me.

bewaretheirs 12y ago

In the US, if a payment is "available" to you, it must be reported as income at the time it becomes available. Failure to cash a paycheck doesn't mean you don't owe tax on it. See IRS publication 525, page 2, "constructively received income": http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p525.pdf http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p525.pdf There's some fuzziness and legal room here but the safe thing would be to declare it as income.

zaroth 12y ago
Yes, it's true you're supposed to pay taxes for money earned in the year it was earned, not just when you happened to deposit the check. That has little to no bearing for this situation. First, the money isn't available since it hasn't even been sent to you. Until you sign-up for the service, and provide a bitcoin address for the funds to be sent to your private key, they are not available. But more importantly, since you have no business relationship with the person giving the money, I would think the best characterization for the income is a tax-free gift (up to $14,000 per giver). But IANAL, and this isn't tax advice.
- eli 12y ago
  Either the service is just funneling money to software authors, or they are collecting it themselves and holding it unless and until authors want it. So if it's the latter, then they are raising money using someone else's name and reputation. Either way, that's not at all cool.
isgood12 12y ago
That makes absolutely no sense to me. If I get an offer from a bank that $200 is available to me if I open a checking account with them, then do I have to report it as income even if I don't open an account or perform any action to go after it?
- zorpner 12y ago
  The money is not available to you if you receive a contingent offer. Once you accept the offer then the money becomes available to you.