On 31/08/12 13:56, Holger Levsen wrote: > On Freitag, 31. August 2012, Daniel Pocock wrote: >> In Switzerland, DebConf's worst case scenario is that every foreign >> sponsor and every person paying the professional rate will be charged >> VAT (about 8%). Swiss companies who sponsor DebConf will get a rebate >> of the 8% VAT on their tax return, but foreign sponsors can't get that >> money back, so it is just lost and the fundraising people have to work >> harder to get more sponsors. > > ouch.
I'm not suggesting it is inevitable - I'd just like to see the situation documented If there is an unavoidable tax on all sponsors, it may fall under the theory of tax incidence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax#Deadweight_costs_of_taxation "This causes fewer transactions to occur, which reduces economic welfare; the individuals or businesses involved are less well off than before the tax." In other words, if a sponsorship package costs 10,000 CHF, we might get 20 sponsors if the tax did not exist, but if a tax does exist, "fewer transactions" means we only get 17 or 18 sponsors - yet under this theory, not only is there less money in the bank, but the fundraising volunteers are making exactly the same amount of effort as in the scenario where 20 sponsors are found. So looking a little deeper into the tax situation and maybe even paying for some consultant, if necessary, may be helpful. That said, most countries also offer subsidies (which are obviously the opposite of taxes) to bring in international events - so if there is a tax, but there is also some subsidy, and if they balance out, it is all OK. _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
