<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Hi Andreas</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Beyond agreeing with Richard's comments, I would add:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jan 29, 2018 at 9:51 PM, Andreas Neumann <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:a.neumann@carto.net" target="_blank">a.neumann@carto.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Dear PSC members and community,<br>
<br>
Unfortunately I got a negative reply for my application of tax exemption from the Zurich tax office. For those who can read German I attach the letter.<br>
<br>
They claim that our statutes imply that we follow an economic intent, by dealing with software development, bug fixing and marketing of free software. They also state, that in general they don't do tax exemptions for Open Source associations. Clearly, they don't understand how Open Source works.<br>
<br>
This comes at a real surprise to me, because when I had a look at the list of tax-exempted organizations in Zurich, that seem to follow quite clearly an economic intent, whereas I have the impression that there is a lot of voluntary work going into QGIS with the intent to make GIS software available to the ones who otherwise could not afford to use GIS software. Because the german QGIS user group got tax exemption in Germany, I had the impression that a similar thing in Switzerland is only a formality - apparently not.<br>
<br>
What are the next steps? First I will ask other Open Source organizations in Switzerland about this topic and if they think, something could be done about it. Otherwise, I will suggest, that we move our organization to a country that better values all the voluntary efforts that go in to Open and free software. Any suggestions of other countries who may host <a href="http://QGIS.ORG" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">QGIS.ORG</a> international?<br>
<br>
For the budget, it will mean that I can't commit to additional QGIS 3 bug fixing currently - I will set aside a couple thousand Euros for tax payments.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Doesnt your tax law work that you pay tax only on profit? If we can show that all the funds are used during the year does it mean we would not pay any tax?</div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
I also don't know how to deal with VAT in upcoming sponsorship invoices - should I add the 7.7% VAT on top of the sponsorship amounts, or should we declare that the sponsorship already includes VAT, meaning that from a € 500.- sponsorship we can only keep € 461.5 ?<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">I would propose to roll it into the total (so we keep 461.5) - we should also make it clear to people donating and sponsoring that a portion of their contribution will be lost to tax.</div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
Any opinions and suggestions?<br>
<br>
Anyway - I deeply apologize for my failing to deal with the matter - and I apologize for the misbehaviour of my country's tax office.</blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">How can we accept an apology that never needed to be made in the first place? I can only thank you for all the effort you have put into this!</div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Apparently, people and organizations are not "equal" in my country. While very powerful organizations like the world soccer organization (FIFA), the olympics and the world economic forum are tax exempt - organizations that have turnovers in the billions - small organizations with lots of voluntary people like QGIS cannot be tax exempt. I am personally very disappointed.</blockquote><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Yeah it is a bit of a blow - lets regroup and think what we can do next. Maybe you have a friendly tax guru there who knows how to appeal the process? Otherwise lets work on the assumption for now that we will have to pay taxes - your VAT rate is at least surprisingly low....:-P</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Regards</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Tim</div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
Andreas<br>
<br>
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