With a small MC team we want to build a Minecraft server.
Now the question arises how we want to finance the server permanently.
First and foremost, we want to cover the costs ourselves but since we want to expand in the long run or: Improve we would have considered donations to collect (which also make most other servers)
Does anyone know about legal matters like eg. The taxation of donations? And where can you best start the donation call?
Please no unnecessary answers.
Many thanks in advance to those who are reading and bothering to answer.
https://de.gofundme.com/
The only thing I can think of.
Just do not make the mistake and rent the Minecraft server as a game server.
SrBuilder
That was just a fat Facepalm.
You may only call money donations if you own an association and these funds are for a charitable purpose. In this respect, these are not donations and you have to sign up a small business or trade and of course tax deduct.
Absolute nonsense. If you want to finance a server among friends, you can of course just so a little bit of money to each other, there's nothing to complain about.
Once it goes beyond that, you should sign up for a small business, correctly. But as long as that stays below a certain level, as it definitely does, I do not have to show any taxes. Of course, if you're making a profit, you can also sell things like your own server hardware.
I think you will not take much money with it anyway? What would that bring? Do you have any insurance that you do not pocket the money yourself? Do you have any assurance that the server will do something?
The question is obviously not just about "financing a server with friends"
But, as far as I can tell, by far not even beyond a small business.
Well, if that was something tax-relevant, you'd have to go right out and write a lot about it, but as I see it, you're still under tax deductions anyway.
I'm not the Minecraft expert right now, but do you earn money with such a server? If not, then you would make your financing anyway only "losses" and tax would be in the field of hobby (somewhat cryptically described in § 15 para 2 sentence 2 EStG or more detailed in H 15.3 EStH.
Start-up losses are irrelevant, decisive would be the total surplus over the years. But I think, income tax law since you anyway far below the radar, where you have to pay in possibly revenue (if there are) sales tax law, since any sales in principle would first be controllable.
First of all, thank you for your professional answer.
With a Minecraft server itself you usually do not earn money. And we do not want to make any money with it. At the beginning we want to finance the server completely independently.
The thought has come to us that if the server is known, we could possibly extend our own costs through donations.
Before we settle there, however, we're interested in how the legal situation is in such a case.
I would be very happy if they had some information for us specifically to our situation
Would it be possible to get an explanation about the announcement on the gameserver? What do you mean that it is a mistake to rent the server as a game server?
I would be very happy about an early reply.
You should run the Minecraft Server on a vServer, Root Server or a Dedicated Server and do not rent as a Gameserver.
Can you give me differences / advantages in relation to their statement so that I can imagine more under it?
I have just read into the subject Dedicated Server and I have to thank them powerfully. To hire this type of server was unknown to me until grade one has since there are many advantages. A big thank you to her.
It is important in any case, that the INTENTION to achieve profit, never exist or actually no profit may be made. It would be stupid to realize, after some time, that the "donations", which are not taxes in the first place, but revenues, are higher than the expenditures. Only then is it in a hobby or income tax law in the hobby.
VAT is a bit more complicated. Here, the intention to make a profit does not matter (of course, the Treasury of course wants to have the 19% USt:-)). Here, all that matters is the sustainable generation of revenue (§ 2 (1) UStG). This is somewhat relativized in "activity for the generation of revenue", 2.3 paragraph 8 UStAE. There must be at least no exchange of services (1.1 para. 1 UStAE, important for you is especially the sentence 8 in this paragraph). You should avoid in any case, make your server to a payment / donation, or to demand fixed contributions for better server performance, or voluntary payments for better services, etc. The sake of completeness, I also like to refer to § 19 UStG: In the worst In this case, sales up to an annual limit of EUR 17,500 remain tax-free anyway.
In general, I would also recommend that you document all expenses and revenues, so that you always see that you make no profit and never intended. So you can react quickly and refute in a questionnaire of the FA. It's probably never going to happen, but why not document it if it's not a lot of work anyway?
It certainly does not hurt if you deal with the tax bases a bit. You learn for life ;-)
Did not he say that's why I mentioned both. What is your problem with my statement?
