Thanks for pointing that out. I usually don't donate but did so this time.

Is there a list of open source software that is going through similar hardships that need donations?

Pretty much all of them?

I'm not in any financial hardship at the moment, but I am looking to stop doing other work and focus more exclusively on WireGuard, so I put up a donation and patreon page:

https://www.wireguard.com/donations/

https://www.patreon.com/zx2c4

You're right. Although i don't use it, i just spent a few euros :)

Same. I don't use it, but I've heard it's extremely high quality, open source software, which we could always use more of. So I've thrown a few euros their way.

I'd love to find out how much is raised via HN :) I donated a few euros as well.

That's a bit hard to figure out, since paypal doesn't track that. The total donated since the story came out is 3159.95 euros.

A few more now! :)

That's great! Thanks for the update, it's nice to see how things are developing. I hope you guys get out unscathed.

Gave 10 euros via paypal

How would I dontate? The site seems down atm.

It's very slow... The hackernews effect, I'm afraid. Internationally, paypal is easiest: just use [email protected].

Otherwise, for people in the EU, our bank account is ING, BIC: INGBNL2A, IBAN: NL72INGB0007216397 .

I don't even use Krita, but donated €15 anyway, just because I know what it's like to deal with the utter shitstains at the VAT department of the Dutch tax service.

As someone who recently paid 200€ in fines to another EU tax authority over 150€ in income, of which I was exempt, just for marking the wrong box, I can sympathize. Just made a small donation.

In the US, a wrong "box" cost me around over $3K last year. This shit happens, unfortunately.

I hope this (the "Hacker News effect") doesn't bump up your hosting costs as that's the last thing you'd need.

For what it's worth, I've donated. :)

EU bank transfers are free of charge.

SEPA transfers are usually free for personal accounts, be it sending or recieving, but business accounts usually charge a < 10 cent fee for recieving a transaction.

He meant server hosting costs.

This is not true for every bank in every EU country.

Yes, I believe the only requirement is that the cost can't exceed of a national transfer, which is unfortunately still not free everywhere in the EU.

I think you can also be charged if a currency conversion is involved (both directly and indirectly through poor exchange rates).

Euro denominated transactions within the SEPA zone (more than just the EU!) cannot be more expensive than domestic euro transactions. See https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area .

But if your country doesn't use the Euro (i.e. the UK), domestic Euro transactions can be more expensive than domestic transactions in the home currency.

The same loophole is used in Bulgaria. Our largest bank charges 7 EUR for receiving 1 EUR, and 19 EUR for sending 1 EUR.

ING Bank charges about 7 cents per transaction on business accounts... it's free on personal accounts.

nope, only in comparison to domestic charges. In some countries like e.g. Cyprus you have to pay ~3 Euro for a SEPA transfer.

What about Project of the month on www.unixstickers.com/donations ? I can help

I sent you 50€. Hope it helps.

Thanks, direct bank is way easier for me than PayPal. Just donated!

Never heard of Krita before, but certainly looks like a high-quality, valuable project that tried to do things right. Donated!

Donated, good luck Krita team!

donated

Donated 10 Euro.

Done!

You are not supporting the software but bad practices resulting in fines and fees. But there's hoping a lesson was learned. It would be a shame if something like this damaged the product.

Getting accounting correct in this kind of situation is just very hard, and sometimes people get it wrong even with due diligence and advice from trained professionals in the field.

Saying this is "supporting bad practices" when they are addressing the problems with their set up is IMHO disingenuous.

(This kind of problem also illustrates why Mozilla is set up the way it is, with a Foundation and a Corporation. Tax Law doesn't always deal well with doing both in the same org.)

Just to add to your point:

Mozilla is set up that way because they got in trouble with the IRS, and had a tax debt for - if memory serves me well - some years after setting up the corporation.

Taxes and accounting is not easy.

Boudewijn Rempt replied elsewhere in this thread with a little more details [1]. After reading this, I don't think the fines are based on bad practices by Krita, but rather on the over-complicated Dutch tax system.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14899324

Still better than supporting a new project from scratch that would take many years to reach the state of Krita. Despite this setback, they still deserve donations IMHO.

You say bad practices, but they got advice from a registered qualified professional in a complex area of tax law.

Yeah, I see, I didn't mean to say it was intentional.

If this were the case, wouldn't that person be liable then?

They would need to prove they suffered loss (and an actual error!). That's not clear in this situation. Not paying taxes you were due isn't extra costs due to your accountant, although fines and interests may be.

So it doesn't work like this?

A: Hey B, how do we have to set up our company/foundation so this doesn't blog up and we have to pay non-sensical taxes only because of the way we are set up?

B: Do it this way: ...

(later)

Z: A, you have to pay taxes because your setup is strange and makes no sense to our rules.

B: Damn, we're liable for the bad advice we gave...

(honest question)

No.

Legally, the hired professional is an advisor. The board/management are collectively responsible for picking a good advisor and double-checking his/her recommendations.

Bottom line: no one takes responsibility for anything (unless they're on the board) and you are on the hook for everything.

This also applies to lawyers, property professionals, medical professionals, engineers, architects, and so on.

Of course this is outrageously unfair, but the reality is that winning compensation for incompetence and malpractice is incredibly hard and expensive - and most professional contracts include explicit disclaimers of responsibility in an attempt to make it even harder.

There's no reason why this is outrageously unfair. An external consultant is only held to an advisory standard because they are external - they are not party to the detailed nuances that management may have inadvertently or deliberately concealed.

It's outrageously unfair because when you hire an advisor you typically know so little about their domain of expertise you have no idea what questions to ask them.

So you have no effective oversight over the quality - or otherwise - of their work.

Of course you can hire another professional to double check the advice of the first professional, but that soon gets expensive, you're pretty much guaranteed some angry muttering, and you're still not guaranteed a reasonable outcome.

It's a remarkable fact that consumers have more rights when buying a toaster than when hiring an accountant or lawyer - and the toaster is going to be more reliable, and much less expensive to run.

Sounds like what they should have gotten was "audit insurance". IDK if such a thing exists, but if it does I'd think you could reduce your premiums if you can prove your risk is low (by providing documentation, or by getting sign-off by a 3rd party tax accountant).

Point is, I'd want to pay money to remove my liability, not just reduce its likelihood.

They say the money made by the developer is only due because of iffy status of the Foundation, and now the income is tax free. So it seems that the taxes due were because of the accountant advice on the structure of the Foundation - unless the sales started later, or the laws changed in between.

That's a fair point. Still won't be easy to actually come out on top when litigating, though.