On 2014-04-13 20:10, Margarita Manterola wrote:
The trickiest part of creating the association is to have a "purpose" that will be accepted as non-profit by the tax authorities. If we do not attain non-profit status, it would mean that we would need to paycorporate and sales taxes (~ 30 %), and donations we received wouldn't be tax deductible on the side of the donor. Since we *are* non-profit,this ought to be avoided. We are already working with a lawyer in order to get this right, we are hopeful that this will succeed in the upcoming weeks.
This may well be the best approach in Germany, but I will mention a couple of points (that you perhaps already thought about):
- Donations can go through the existing Debian trusted non-profit organisations, and be paid to any supplier (including a temporary entity for a conference)
- Corporate taxes are usually only relevant if you make a profit (which a special-purpose entity can avoid)
- Sales taxes (VAT) are often only required if the turnover is beyond some threshold (but this can easily be reached if much money is passed through for DebConf)
The reason why we are not using FFIS for this in the first place is tofacilitate decision-making and agility; the venue is in Heidelberg, many of us in Munich, but FFIS is in Oldenburg. Regardless of location, we would also need active involvement from FFIS board in DebConf 15 organization, which we don't have.
I don't think that the small location difference is enough reason in itself, but a lack of responsiveness from FFIS could be.
There would be no liability for Debian (as the association is aseparate entity). Furthermore, we plan to employ external insurance inorder to reduce the liability of the organising team, as nobody is able to assume personal liability for the event.
Again, I can believe this is the best version for Germany, but in many places you could just create a limited-liability company rather than seek insurance.
-- Moray