Talk:Wikimedia France/Fundraising letter March 2012

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Chers amis de Wikimedia France,

thank you so much for writing this. A very thoughtful document that will surely help the Board of Trustees (at least it will definitely help me) in our decision making on this serious and tough issue. I am very glad to see that the discussion around this continues to stay on such a high level - following with the papers published by several chapters and groups right before our last board meeting and - probably most importantly - the extremely successful Finance Meeting a few weeks ago in Paris that you guys did put together.

Chapeau ! -- Arne (akl) (talk) 21:39, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Arne. And congrats for your improved French :) Anthere (talk) 14:54, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is well-supported and thought out position statement. I think you are on the right track with this. Thanks for sharing your position pubilicly. --BirgitteSB (talk) 15:00, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


50% and tax deductibility[edit]

Bonjour, thanks for such a clear letter. I had heard that there was a problem in transferring more than 50% of Wikimedia France money outside of France, and it is good to hear that you can do so provided no one organisation gets more than 50% of you money. I'm not quite sure that I understand how 300% tax deductibility works. Does this mean that for every euro a donor gives a charity the Government adds two more, or does this mean that for every Euro you give to charity you don't pay tax on three Euros of your income? WereSpielChequers (talk) 22:51, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi WereSpielChequers, this is how it works : if you give 300€ to a charity, you get a 200€ tax refund, so you effectively spend 100€ --Ofol (talk) 22:53, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK that makes sense, much more generous than in the UK, but the donor benefits not the charity. I would describe it as "so a 300€ donation only costs the donor 100€ as ultimately they get 200€ back from the taxman". Rather than "so the value of a 100€ donation is 300€". WereSpielChequers (talk) 00:25, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
you are completely right ! Now that's how charities present it on the donation form.. for obvious reasons. Often what you find is "give 300€ and this will only cost you 100€". --Ofol (talk) 20:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If that's correct, then it's also much more generous than tax deductions in the US. In US income taxation, charitable deductions are taken out of income, so a $300 donation means you reduce the amount of income that gets taxed, let's say from $41,000 to $40,700 (the reduction in actual taxes will vary based on your marginal tax rate - which is probably in the range of 25-35% if you're itemizing deductions, so probably not more than $100 unless you're quite wealthy and fall in the highest tax bracket). If in the French system the deduction is to the amount of tax paid, then if you owe 6.000€ in taxes the 300€ donation reduces that to 5.800€ (because of the 2/3 rate), right? At least in US terms, that's normally called a tax credit to distinguish it from the way deductions work, and as this shows it can be significantly more advantageous. Most US income tax credits are capped at specific amounts (usually fairly low, like $500) rather than being limited by a percentage rate. --Michael Snow (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for finally clarifying me this! I've never managed to understand the USA terminology. In Italy, what you call a "tax credit" is called "detrazione fiscale", while deduction is "deduzione fiscale", although obviously the terms are often confused. The law offers both systems (sometimes at the same time, depending on the involved parties) with varied limits: either 19 % tax credit (with 2000 € limit for persons) or full deduction (with very high limits, quite hard to reach). France is very generous, yes. Nemo 21:10, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Yeah, we live in a generous country. Sort of :)
Here is the link where this info is summarize http://www.wikimedia.fr/déduction-fiscale

une déduction fiscale de 66% des dons pour un particulier (réduction d'impôt sur le revenu dans la limite de 20 % du revenu imposable, reportable sur cinq ans en cas de dépassement de ce plafond). Ainsi, après réduction d'impôts, un don de 30 € ne vous coûtera que 10,20 € et un don de 50 € seulement 17 €.
> the donation opens a tax deduction of 66% of the donation, up to the maximum limit of 20% of the revenue. If the 20% limit is reached, it may be reported to the following year, up to 5 years in the future. And yes, the 66% is removed from the amount of tax due. Not from your revenue. This is for the individual
une déduction fiscale de 60% des dons pour une entreprise (réduction d'impôt sur le revenu ou d'impôt sur les sociétés dans la limite de 5 ‰ du chiffre d'affaires hors taxes, reportable sur cinq ans en cas de dépassement de ce plafond).
> For companies, the tax deduction is 60% (not 66%) and the limit that can be taken into account is 5 ‰ of the total revenue of the company.
> So, IF you are an individual, the real cost of a donation of 50 euros is 17 euros. Anthere (talk) 22:46, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]