AW: Donation to GNU Octave

[Schirmacher, Rolf]

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden Im Auftrag von Jordi Gutiérrez 
Hermoso
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 9. Februar 2012 20:17
An: address@hidden
Betreff: Re: Donation to GNU Octave

On 9 February 2012 14:13, Thomas Weber <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 09, 2012 at 03:24:38PM +0100, Ismael Núñez-Riboni wrote:
>> >the tax deductibility of donations to FSFE is directly based on the 
>> >rule that FSFE has to use all of these donations directly within 
>> >FSFE. It is not possible to simply forward money to other 
>> >organisations, especially not to organisations not approved as charitable 
>> >in Germany.
>>
>> Yes, I got the same answer from the same person. I will try to do 
>> what he suggests (which was also what Thomas Weber suggested me), 
>> i.e.
>>
>> >to offer a support contract, an
>> >improvement in function, or any other service related to GNU Octave 
>> >that can easily be declared as a business spending.
>>
>> This might take, however, a very long time, because (I'm guessing
>> only) a lot of people will be involved in authorizing such support 
>> contract, I guess perhaps a year of bureaucracy...
>
> You are not looking for a conulting contract. You are looking for an 
> invoice. Said invoice might even be for a license to Octave.

There has been more than one German that requested we give them something like 
this. How can Octave provide an invoice for the GPL? Do we need to be 
registered under German law as some sort of organisation? Do you have any idea 
whom to ask?

- Jordi G. H.
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As I understand, we are talking about two completely different issues here

A) Making a charitable donation as to get an income tax deduction for the 
individual (i.e. Ismael), but that requires effort on the side of the 
charitable organisation (i.e. FSFE) to obtain this status

B) Getting some invoice that will then be deductible as business spending for a 
business. No effort on the FSFE side, but Ismael might need to get a lot of 
company internal approval for a business spending...
But even in this case, the invoice has to follow the German legal requirements, 
e.g including VAT relevant information, company tracability, etc. Not complying 
to them might render the invoice useless with respect to tax deduction (and 
perhaps also for company internal approval).

For private persons (i.e. enthusiastic individuals), A) is the only way to go 
with respect to tax deductions anyway.

But again, I am not a tax advisor...

Rolf