Hi,

Our documentation is not finalized yet but feel free to access the tax section here.

Let me know if you have any question. You can also reach out to me on Slack.

Regards

Hi, my question is:

VAT is collected on the principle that it is paid for by consumers. Businesses do not pay the costs for VAT out of their pocket.

As OpenCollective does not collect VAT, why does VAT need to be paid? It is essentially being paid out of pocket by the open collective maintainers, and in NL effectively means 27% of donations are lost to fees, 21% to a tax that the government has never earned.

None of my donators are even based in the EU! It doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

On what basis does VAT need to be paid? The tax section has no information on this at all. 

Hi Sam,

Can you reach out to me by email or on Slack? We are looking to improve our policy on that and I'd love to better understand your needs.

jf@opencollective.brussels
Slack

Hi there, I'm bumping this thread because now that we are more actively starting to claim expenses from the donations we get, the 21% loss is becoming particularly problematic and makes little sense. I'm not going to repeat the arguments from OP as we are in the exact same situation and also NL based. 

To add insult to injury, we called the Dutch taxes yesterday and, in our particular case, as long as our collective remains non profit, and as long as nobody from the collective is drawing more than €1.800,- a year from the money we get from donations, this not taxable (either via income or VAT). It is of course the responsibility of the collective members receiving such money to declare it even if it will not be taxed.

How can we be granted an exemption when we declare our expenses?

Thanks!

PS: actually, to be concise, what we would need from you is not a VAT exemption but an invoice exemption as what we are doing is essentially a hobby and not a commercial service.

Thanks!