[Qgis-psc] Bad news: negative reply from Zurich tax office

[Paolo Cavallini]

Hi all,
thanks Andreas for updating us, and for all your work on this.
I believe we should not surrender, and try again to let them understand
our good reasons. It is a plain fact that we are not, nor intend to be,
a commercial entity of any sort.
In the worst case, we might even consider moving under a more favourable
legislation. Apart from the financial impact on our budget, we should
also consider that missing a nonprofit status will make donation much
less attractive in several countries, so it is worth insisting or
finding alternatives.
I realize this will imply more burden on Andreas shoulders, and I'm
ready to help if useful.
All the best.

Il 29/01/2018 23:09, Jeff McKenna ha scritto:
> Dear Andreas,
> 
> As someone who was in your shoes for many years for OSGeo, I must say to
> not be discouraged.
> 
> From my years of talking with other foundation leaders and watching,
> listening etc, I've noticed some interesting points:
> 
> - in 2017 a non-profit foundation did a lot of research and chose
> Singapore as the best place to register for many reasons including tax
> exempt status: https://blog.ghost.org/moving-to-singapore/
> 
> - a 2017 article on several different non-profit organizations in Europe
> and why they chose a specific country to register (Netherlands, Germany,
> etc): https://lwn.net/Articles/713073/
> 
> Also, even OSGeo's history, and reasons, can help give ideas as you
> travel down this path:
> 
> 
> 
> It took the OSGeo foundation 8 long years of battling, to finally
> achieve tax exempt status (credit to the early work of Tyler and
> Daniel).  To be fully honest, even in the 8th year we were stuck, but
> all along I was talking to other foundations, watching what was
> happening, asking questions to other leaders, back and forth; then one
> day in 2014 I noticed another foundation, OpenNTF, mention of their own
> success by changing to a "Social Welfare Organization" for the IRS tax
> people.  I mentioned this to the OSGeo Board, and our lawyer changed our
> application to that type, and our tax exempt application was quickly
> approved.  (!!?!!)
> 
> Now you might say 'yes but OSGeo is registered in the United States,
> what similarities are there for here' but I really feel that getting to
> know why OSGeo (and other foundations) choose to register in one
> location over another, can really help QGIS.ORG down this path.  For
> example, why do most fortune500 companies register in the U.S. state of
> Delaware (as OSGeo did):
> https://www.americanbar.org/publications/blt/2016/11/01_leitner.html
> 
> That article lists many reasons, that you could use as check points in
> your search for QGIS.ORG and the right location.
> 
> (to be fully honest and open here, as a Canadian I too often wondered
> why OSGeo chose, of all places, to register in Delaware, but after a
> long time I can understand the reasons why, as I'm not a lawyer at all)
> 
> Hope some of that history helps.
> 
> -jeff
> 
> 
> 
> On 2018-01-29 3:51 PM, Andreas Neumann wrote:
>> Dear PSC members and community,
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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 QGIS.ORG international?
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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 ?
>>
>> Any opinions and suggestions?
>>
>> Anyway - I deeply apologize for my failing to deal with the matter -
>> and I apologize for the misbehaviour of my country's tax office.
>> 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.
>>
>> Andreas
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Paolo Cavallini - www.faunalia.eu
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