Important PayPal donations, redux

[Lucy]

Hello everyone,

Some of you may recall when we had some problems with PayPal some time ago. We had, at the time, resolved the situation with PayPal by providing them with all the information they requested, meaning our account was restored in full.

It turns out, however, that the information they requested wasn't enough to validate our existence as a PayPal business account holder, and they now insist that we provide them additional documentation. TBlaxland and I (mostly he, rather than me) have been working with PayPal to resolve the problems they've identified and to restore our account.

Unfortunately, PayPal decided that they wanted proof of our Registration as an Australian Corporation by means of our registration document, despite us asserting that we are an unincorporated association, something they have an option for. Much back and forth ensued, but the ultimate reply from PayPal was that we are required to become a registered corporation to enjoy the benefits of a PayPal account.

What this means is that, on Monday, January 22nd 2018, we will become temporarily unable to accept donations on the Orbiter-Forum PayPal account. We have plenty aside to fund the servers in this eventuality, so, this won't pose us any short-term difficulty. While this restriction is in place, we'll be working to get our "business" registered, and to present PayPal with the documentation they require to unrestrict our account.

I'd like to take this opportunity to once again thank all our generous donators for their support, and to apologise for the inconvenience PayPal have caused us again.

 

[GLS]

Too bad a certain E. R. Musk isn't associated with PayPal anymore, given than O-F is space-related....:hmm:

 

[Face]

If O-F is registered as an Australian corporation, does it mean that you will have to pay taxes, too?

---------- Post added at 17:51 ---------- Previous post was at 17:49 ----------

Oh, and more important: have to do financial book-keeping as well?

 

[Urwumpe]

Is there no option like the German "eingetragener Verein" / registered club concept? its a group of at least three members, must be registered at the local court and follow some formal requirements, is a full legal person germany and pays no taxes usually.

(Since orbiter promotes science and research, an Orbiter related club would have good chance to be tax free as charitable club)

 

[Artlav]

So, how about accepting donations in Bitcoin or Ethereum?
These were designed to solve exactly this kind of bureaucratic overdose problems.

 

[Enjo]

So, how about accepting donations in Bitcoin or Ethereum?

The idea sounds good, but I'm not sure if it would work in this community.

 

[boogabooga]

Patreon?

https://www.patreon.com/

 

[tblaxland]

If O-F is registered as an Australian corporation, does it mean that you will have to pay taxes, too?

---------- Post added at 17:51 ---------- Previous post was at 17:49 ----------

Oh, and more important: have to do financial book-keeping as well?

No profit = no tax :thumbup: That's an over-simplification, but that's the concept. The ATO has a good couple of hundred pages written on the subject to deal with the details

Some additional record keeping, yes, but not much more than we ordinarily do as part of normal due diligence anyway.

Is there no option like the German "eingetragener Verein" / registered club concept? its a group of at least three members, must be registered at the local court and follow some formal requirements, is a full legal person germany and pays no taxes usually.

(Since orbiter promotes science and research, an Orbiter related club would have good chance to be tax free as charitable club)

Yes, we have this too - "registered association" - which is where we are headed.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Plenty of PayPal alternatives have sprung up in recent years. Give 'em the boot!

Patreon?

https://www.patreon.com/

I think this is the way to go for organizations of this nature in 2018.

So, how about accepting donations in Bitcoin or Ethereum?
These were designed to solve exactly this kind of bureaucratic overdose problems.

Bitcoin is currently "broken", costing $10-30 for transactions. Ethereum works nicely, but I'm not sure many donors would be willing to adopt it.

 

[Artlav]

Bitcoin is currently "broken", costing $10-30 for transactions. Ethereum works nicely, but I'm not sure many donors would be willing to adopt it.

More like $2-$4, but yeah it's unpredictable in that regard these days and it would be months at the minimum before the solution is rolled out.

However, such a donation option would cost nothing to add and nothing to maintain, so why not?

 

[Urwumpe]

However, such a donation option would cost nothing to add and nothing to maintain, so why not?

Because you donate $50 at 20:00, at 21:00 its worth $200 and when its turned into money again to pay the server bills, the value dropped to $5.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Because you donate $50 at 20:00, at 21:00 its worth $200 and when its turned into money again to pay the server bills, the value dropped to $5.

Typically, businesses accepting cryptocurrencies convert to fiat immediately.
There are a number of "instant exchange" services for this.

More like $2-$4, but yeah it's unpredictable in that regard these days and it would be months at the minimum before the solution is rolled out.

However, such a donation option would cost nothing to add and nothing to maintain, so why not?

The average Bitcoin transaction fee was $23 today. Probably more than most people would even be donating.
https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.html#3m

Adding cryptocurrency addresses to donate to would certainly be easy enough.
But setting up an instant exchange account may or may not cause some annoyance.
Alternatively, holding onto the currency has capital gains tax implications (in the U.S. but probably also Aus).

 

[Artlav]

Not even in 2012 was crypto volatility THAT bad. These days it might move up 25% over a week or drop 25% for a week, but it's not going to move an order of magnitude over less than a year, and as the industry matures it's going to get more stable, not less.

Anyway, i guess the main key word here is, in fact, "business".
Even i have no idea where to start looking at what the taxes or income declarations would look like for crypto donations to a non-profit/association business entity, so my "would cost nothing" does not really apply here...

More precisely, it would cost nothing to receive them, but it would be a PITA to use them.

---------- Post added at 11:52 ---------- Previous post was at 11:48 ----------

The average Bitcoin transaction fee was $23 today. Probably more than most people would even be donating.

What people paid is not the same as what is required.
Here is the actual load graph - https://dedi.jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1w

But i agree, you need to know a lot of details in order to get cheap transactions reliably, and most people would just use the low-risk-high-price defaults.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, compared to Bitcoins or Ethereum, even the stockmarket looks like a reliable investment. Why not allow paying the server in SpaceX shares?

 

[Artlav]

Why not allow paying the server in SpaceX shares?

Because they are not publicly traded yet?
Also, stocks have a weird design flaw that you can't buy less than one share, making for a rather large and unwieldy payment unit.

 

[Gmoney]

Look forward to hearing when donations are up and running again - hope you guys can sort it soon.

 

[Lucy]

Access to our paypal account has now been fully restored by them as a result of tblaxland's tireless efforts - many thanks Tim!

This means we are now once again able to accept donations to the forum. However, during the extended period of restriction, all automated donations were suspended, and these can't be resumed (because that would have been helpful, PayPal), so they must be recreated. This means that regular donators will need to revisit their PayPal subscriptions if they wish to contribute to the forum's running again - the payment will not resume automatically.

Once again, I'd like to thank tblaxland for his efforts on this difficult situation, and to express how grateful all of the forum team are for the generous support offered by our donators. You guys rock!