> Could you explain why accepting tips is so complicated? What specific law means you cannot do it?
If tips come in individually and in small numbers and you need to track the rate of exchange, origin and everything the money I lose money actively by needing to track it. There is no point in accepting small amounts.
The reason actual tips work in Austria is because they are tax except within a regulatory framework. That however does not apply to software developers.
> Let me put this another way. If your friends give you money for your birthday, do you give it back to them and tell them you can't accept their gift because of tax and regulation?
Actual gifts are a different tax code (they are tax free). I can however not just pretend that any of my income is the same. This is not a "but if i read the law like this" thing.
> but if Austria makes it hard to accept cash gifts of small amounts then something is seriously wrong with Austrian law and this is not something to be defended.
From what I have heard it's not in any way easier in other countries and it does not have to be because that was never the problem. The whole point of bountysource and other systems is to accumulate money and to simplify the whole process. It makes everything easier, even if taxes would not be concerned. It's what makes the whole tipping thing save and easy through a middleman.
If tips come in individually and in small numbers and you need to track the rate of exchange, origin and everything the money I lose money actively by needing to track it. There is no point in accepting small amounts.
The reason actual tips work in Austria is because they are tax except within a regulatory framework. That however does not apply to software developers.
> Let me put this another way. If your friends give you money for your birthday, do you give it back to them and tell them you can't accept their gift because of tax and regulation?
Actual gifts are a different tax code (they are tax free). I can however not just pretend that any of my income is the same. This is not a "but if i read the law like this" thing.
> but if Austria makes it hard to accept cash gifts of small amounts then something is seriously wrong with Austrian law and this is not something to be defended.
From what I have heard it's not in any way easier in other countries and it does not have to be because that was never the problem. The whole point of bountysource and other systems is to accumulate money and to simplify the whole process. It makes everything easier, even if taxes would not be concerned. It's what makes the whole tipping thing save and easy through a middleman.