in a very distant future, you will have to pay to see the giveaways .... cmon
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This is neat! I like supporting people and services I appreciate, especially when they are free. Maybe in the future when I'm less broke I'll become a patron. :3
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Well it's a no from me, basically cause you could've put the "No ads" to a 1$ tier without any other privileges, because half of the users only want that, so they can browse the forum normally, without any fancy frames or gifs, so if 200-300 get the 1$ - that's around 300$ + the higher tiers, which at my calculation would be enough. I support this idea, but it lacks some basic things. The rewards distribution is simply not as flexible as I though it would be.
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what you are saying is basically a 3$ tier. because donator icon is optional (basically all stuff is optional), so if you only want no ads and analytics and nothing else - there is a tier for that, just don't opt-in for donator icon ;p
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Yeah but a single user would never generate a 1$ profit monthly, regardless of how often he was browsing the site (otherwise cg would be a millionaire already). This is also the smallest tier you can create - I know because I have my own patreon as well.
1$ tier for no ads + analytics would be the best one. If somebody wants to pay 2$ extra for donator icon, that's upon him. I know that patreon suggests 3$ tier due to fees and other issues, but this is still a nice tier for those that just want to help, not necessarily pay for anything. You can see that in my case 1$ tier is far more popular than 3$ one.
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yes, but in this case problem is not with "not giving users what they really want without extra fancy stuff", you have an option to get what you want without any fancy stuff, because all fancy stuff is totally optional ;p problem of OP rather is "there is stuff I need but I believe it's too expensive" - difference here is that while not giving option (almost) everyone wants would be objective flaw (because if everyones wants it it's objective for all community), and giving this option but for not as little as you personally would want is subjective thing ;)
Anyway - one can always donate 1$ and use adblock ;) Or don't donate anything and use adblock ;) Imho donations are just a way of showing thanks, im ok with tiers as they are, but still won't judge anyone who decides not to donate anything and run adblock on top of that ;)
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Saying that you can buy 3$ tier and turn off icon is like saying you can buy brand new ferrari and get only a set of wheels. Sure you can, but the proper and logical tier for disabling ads and analytics would be a tier that covers revenue from those two. And 1$ tier does.
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I prefer to use the full breadth of language. No reason to avoid the proper usage beyond dyslexia.
Patronage is a a type of donation, but not all donations are patronage. Rectangle/square concept.
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Ughhhh, this comes off as so douchey but I'ma leave it because I'm a grammar grump
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not to be picky, but you weren't really arguying grammar here, rather vocabluary I would say ;)
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I had wanted to explain my positive amazement regarding "arguying" (as in "today I learned something") and then nitpick on the typo in vocabulary, but then I got the idea to check on the conjugation of "argue" first .. and somehow became disappointed of you.
:-P
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then it would be nitpicking on neither vocabulary nor grammar but spelling ;p and we haven't discussed spelling here ;p
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but it's not rectangle-square situation here, it's opposite - square-rectangle ;p Not every rectangle is a square, but every square is a rectangle. Not every donator is a patron, but every patron is a donator. So it is totally linguistically correct to use word donator in this situation. If we were on Ferrari enthusiasts forums and I said "your cars are..." instead of "your Ferraris are..." I would still be correct, because all these Ferraris are cars ;p Not wanting to be douchey as well, just like you are a grammar grump, I am a math grump, and logic also falls into mathemathics field ;)
Also there is another reeason beyond dyslexia - not being native in english ;) While you may be, me and most of other users are not. I try my best to use at least understandable english, but it's hard to expect from me usage on the level of native speaker and same goes to the rest of users ;)
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Can I have a discount? It is the first time that I see these words in my life. xD
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You should give more to Space Cats, just saying. :P Good luck. ;)
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I'm unreasonably happy that you linked that song, that was in my mind when writing the comment :D
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I found out this song again by pure accident not long ago. And thought "how could I forget about this masterpiece?" : D
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Make sure and listen to his other songs, there are really good ones :) Rise, Force of Nature, The Moment, When the Wolves Cry Out, Half Man Song, any witcher ones, the Dishonored sound or the Destiny 2 one - or one of the ones I don't like that much :P
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I would be more insterested if I could choose and upload my own GIFs for my winners myself :O
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it was proposed in rewards proposition thread but I guess it cannot be done, mainly because of danger of ppl uploading offensive gifs which would be against SG rules and winners not being aware of Patreon rewards associating these gifs with SG itself.
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Now see, the ability to upload porn gifs would probably encourage me to become a patreonizer.
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Yeah, even if I was not aware of that being proposed, I quickly thought it might not be as good as it sounds because of people not using them the way they are meant. Maybe a "report GA finished GIF" could help making people keep attached to the rules >.<
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even so it could possibly generate more unnecessary work for support ;)
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And what kind of work indeed
"She sent me a GIF of a cat and I was expecting a pussy" >>>.<<<
Better keep it as is already then >.<
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I already miss my avatar border from the test period
-checks wallet-
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Specially when it ends up costing in time... And time is money...
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Now 180$ a year for an elitist tag, is good value for your money.
It pratically pays itself.
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36$ for a tag... 48$ for custom avatar border and 25 gifs... And 60$ for 75 gifs...
That is less than a dollar per extra gif!
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36$ for a tag... 84$ for custom avatar border and 25 gifs... And 180$ for 75 gifs..
or my maths is off !
(your maths - 36$ for a tag... 48$ for custom avatar border and 25 gifs... And 60$ for 75 gifs...)
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36+48=84
But my math is off for 60... It's 96 for 75 gifs...
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okay - then clearly I am wrong on the monthly patreon rates - for which I appoligise :) and I have no idea what you are talking about anymore - UlverHausu said $180, to which you replied with your maths; and from what I can see UlverHausu are right about the upper band of subs ! (perhaps its the number of shiny really useful gifs I am misunderstanding)
@ :-)
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180 is correct. I was just calculating the cost of tiers and extras they bring... 36 gets a tag, extra 48 gets borders and 25 gifs. Further 96 gives 75 gifs...
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Oh, boy! What a great way to prove to people how elitist generous I am! Thanks CG!
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I'd donate if I had the money. After 3-5 years I'll have graduated from uni, so maybe then a more sustainable income will allow me to donate. Thanks to everyone else though. You guys are the blood of SG :)
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In before the countless tickets and topics arguing that cg exploits SG only for his personal benefit.
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That is pretty expensive... And no CV even...
I would say it is, as lots of money is most elitist thing of today...
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Was considered but would require vetting. Not sure how I could explain to peeps that watching a bunch of porn/gore gifs was part of moderating a video game website.
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None of the rewards interest me. If you gave exclusive or early access to features that would help big gifters, then you'd get my attention. Top of the list for me would be tools to make it easy to create large batches or trains of GAs. Yes, there are user scripts for that, but they're kinda hacky workarounds. Built-in support would be awesome.
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Honestly, I see no reason why such tools shouldn't be for everyone.
Only thing I could see that is related to that is increase of number of giveaways, comments, threads, etc. shown at one page.
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Good feature, but this subscription that you need to pay every month makes me sad.
No payment in next month - you are not donator anymore :(
Would be best that you donate 10$ and you get rewards for unlimited amount of time, but thats just my opinion.
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coughcoughrubbingintensifiescoughcough
agree. either an "una tantum" payment or a free donation option (give what you want when you want to)
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Hope this goes really good for SG!
Been a member of the community for a while and CG deserves it!!
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Too bad they seem to add our VAT to the donations, making it bit silly.
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24% here, what really should happen is them stop taking tax out of donations, nothing is purchased.
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No it would not be abusable in the slightest. Donation == charity, money you give away without getting anything. And even if not, the tax in question would be gift tax and first couple thousand would be free, not VAT which is purely for business transactions.
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They may be similar in common language, but before law they are very much not the same - charity donations are for charity organizations, which is very closely monitored - that's why it's so controlled. For example you can donate money to anyone, but tax refund is only accessible if you donate to official, booked charity organizations, not the neighbour kid's charity to buy more lego.
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They might seem differerent in US language, not EU. There is no VAT for donations ever, period. They are gifts, no tax refunds are ever abilied here. Just the lack of VAT which is for business transactions.
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Except that case has nothing to do with this. That concers some EU countries, where you can deduct domestic donations, being forced to deduct for other EU countries as well. But since our local law doesn't know any kind of tax deduction for private people donating, it's still the same no matter where it is.
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So it seems it's different in the EU as well as you still can donate to private people without tax deduction, but you can deduct social donations that is for charity organization, what a surprise. This is why I said charity = /= donation, as you can donate to anyone but charity refers to charitable organizations :)
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yeah in the UK at least, to get tax breaks you need to be registered properly as a charity - things like patreon would not be considered a charity - as you are paying a sub monthly for someones work (to keep SG up and running in this instance it appears) - that is a business expense for goods and/or services and thus can attract VAT - which is a bit sad :(
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Yes it's different in different EU countries, I personally can't deduct anything at all except expenses for a job, like travel and tools. So they still are literally the same thing. Charities don't pay taxes on what money they get donated, not make you pay any less tax no matter how much you donated.
And VAT has nothing to do with any of this, only companies can deduct VAT if they sell to a reseller instead of consumer, so it only gets paid once at the end.
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I personally can't deduct anything at all except expenses for a job, like travel and tools
How is that any releated to charity, or have any effect on the general discussion?
Charities don't pay taxes on what money they get donated, not make you pay any less tax no matter how much you donated.
They do, that's called tax deduction, the thing we're talking about.
"Being tax deductible means that you can deduct the expense from your income on your tax return. If you give $100 to charity, that will not reduce your taxes by $100. It will reduce your taxable income by $100."
Look, giving to non-profit charities can reduce the tax you have to pay ;) but patreon is not charity, just a donation system using money transfers, and if they do their transfer as purchases, it includes VAT. Considering they encourage patreon rewards, it's not even surprising that these transfers are treated as purchases, paying and receiving something in return :)
VAT return/deduction has nothing to do with the whole discussion - neither with the difference between giving money to charities or just donating to random places, neither that why patreon includes VAT. I didn't even use the word VAT before this comment ^_^
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I'll only repeat this once more in the hopes of you finally getting it: there is absolutely nothing at all in our tax law concerning tax deductions to charities by private people, no word at all, So that's still not happening here no matter what laws some other countries have. I know fully how it works thanks :)
And yes that's why we pay the VAT when there should be none, because of just donating to someone we're paying to use an US for profit company's service. And BTW, there is also no VAT deduct/return ever for private people here, still only for companies. Not paying VAT for something it's not meant for in the first case isn't the same thing as first paying and then getting back.
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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's not me who plays a parrot by repeating "my country my country" while not even paying attention that I never questioned that.. EU laws are applicable in all member countries and I deliberately looked up the US/international law, which affects the EU, with Finland in it as well. International law is different than laws inside a single country, but if you rather ignore the fact that internationally you have more rights than dealing inside "your country", your loss.
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I'm talking about local laws that I fully know. You're talking about some imaginary EU law that overrides them. Protip: there is still no such thing. Your imagination must run really wild if you think our tax law is somehow affected by US laws either.
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Always a good response when you don't seem to be able to come up even with 1 link to these mystical EU/US/int laws that you know so well without anyone else ever hearing about them here.
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¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Donations to SCI are tax deductible across the European Union:
"In late 2014 I did some searching around and stumbled upon a ruling made by the European Court of Justice in January 2009, where they upheld a claim that tax-payers should be able to deduct gifts to charities established in other member states. At the start of 2015 I received the summary for my 2014 tax return. After talking with a couple of friends studying Law I decided to file a claim with the Danish Tax Agency, citing case number C-318/07 and Judgment ECLI:EU:C:2009:33, stating that according to EU law I am entitled to a tax deduction for my donations to charitable organizations inside the EU."
Cited case: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?language=en&num=C-318/07 and http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_CJE-09-5_en.htm
Also Eurordis' page: "Your donation is tax deductible in all EU member states & the US If you live in Europe and are making a donation to EURORDIS, you are entitled to claim a tax deduction of your donation."
There you go, the mystical EU law about tax deduction. There's the all-EU law about it. You would be entitled for deduction as an EU-citizen, but as you said, as a Finnish you are not.What a pity. But the EU-level law that you were soooo eager and really not sarcastic about still exists. And as I should have done a reply ago, I won't spend more energy on your.
(Also it's irrelevant that patreon resides in the US, because even if it would be in the next country of yours you would still the exct same VAT as it's based on the donator's country. And as you know, VAT is in everything, even in the food you're buying in your local store, as items, goods and services that generate money flow in a country - that's one of the main income of government. But I guess you won't go into the store "aaah, it would be better without taxes" :P )
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I have explained 2 times already what that means. Let's go for the 3rd one, after that I'm done.
That Danish guy could deduct donations from taxes in his own country. So no discrimination EU law makes it so that all donations to other EU countries are deductable as well. It still says absolutely nothing about what the tax law should be, only that it must treat all EU countries as equal to your own. So if local law doesn't say anything about it, that EU law doesn't enforce anything.
If you don't get that, at least google more to find out how VAT and income tax don't have anything to do with each other.
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I don't think starwhite sees patreon as a company for some reason, so perhaps that is where the confusion is coming into play here (although I could be mistaken here) - as it stands we are not giving a charitable gift to SG (in no sense of the word), we, if we choose to or can afford to, are paying a monthly sub to patreon who then pays that onto SG - who in turn is being paid to keep SG up and running - in both instances, therefore, patreon and CG of steamgifts is providing us with goods or sevices - which in the EU is subject to VAT. (no charity, or charitable status involved) - I think that is what you were saying above though!
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Likely. As patreon states at their site
#1: Patreon Fee - Patreon takes 5% of successfully-processed payments.
And some additional processing fees, up to 20$, quite negligible. But then there's the VAT, based on the patron's location and then the tax based on the income with some additional delicate parts like
"If the creator is a legally recognized not-for-profit company, and if as a patron you receive nothing of value in return for your donation, then some jurisdictions allow the patron to take a tax deduction if the patron has an acknowledgement which meets certain requirements."
which include that the donor needs to be a legally recognized non-profit company, and the donators should give for charity, so not getting *anything* for it - then it's deductible,
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yeah that is what I thought you meant - well we get steamgifts, so no charity there :P - thought I wasn't going mad @ :-p
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I see Patreon as a company, where did you get any other idea? I don't mind some small fee taken by Patreon for it, would be the same with PayPal, bitcoins or whatever, someone usually pays a small fee. What I mind is our goverment taxing the donation because of this silly system.
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it's not a silly system - it's just EU VAT law as it currently stands (including the UK) - it is annoying though I admit :); but perfectly normal for non charitable trusts (or businesses as they are known for this purpose), who provide goods and services to EU citizens - making VAT applicable (not something I like or appreciate, but something we have to pay :( sadly (I appologise if I am misunderstanding your viewpoint towards this specific law though - we can all get the wrong end of the stick when dealing with this area sadly).
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It's silly when I could donate directly without no tax applied to it ever. Also Patreon makes it more of a hassle than easy, paypal.me link and couple clicks later money is already usable by them. So I just decided personally to not support the system that doesn't give me any extra benefits, just extra costs.
Even when ordering goods from outside the EU any order where VAT would be less than 5€ is taxfree. But for a $5 donation I would pay $1.20 VAT for the extra hassle, which I don't personally see as any kind of desirable goods or service. That's my main point. Not some random tax deduction crap some people make up :)
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oh I get the annoyance, I really do - we get charged VAT on anything over £15 coming from outside the EU area - and the people delivering the goods charge between £8 (royal mail) to £12 (UPS etc...) to collect the VAT on top of the actual VAT due (this really pees us off I can tell you) - but goods from inside the EU have the VAT built in, so we just see the final price (rather than see the VAT being paid seperately) at the checkout.
but the law being stated above is not made up - it exists in the US, and also in the EU, that donations sent to charitable trusts can be used for deductions or tax writeoffs - it is why some poeple do it (to lessen their tax bills etc...) - big business can do it to also lessen their tax liabillty - but only if giving to a registered charity does that work in the UK ! (which can be hard to do at the best of times).
perhaps the thing here to remember is that the patreon system is not a donation - but a sub, paid on a monthly basis - much like paying for netflix.
I actually wanted it to be a straight up donation system as well - 'cause we cannot afford to both do giveaways, and pay a montly fee to help out CG with the their costs; we can afford to do one or the other (so we choose giveaways at this time) - but we could have afforded the occasional straight up donation (rather that sub each month) on occasion - Alas, not an option it seems at the moment :(
so we will stick with the giveaways for now :) - speaking of which, gotta go and set some up :)
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Sounds like a good idea :)
The EU law some people think applies here only says that all EU wide donations have to be treated the same as domestic ones. But when your local ones don't get deductions, no others will get either.
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If u ever will do anything with SteamTrades security and features i think i can do some Patreon thing :)
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Hi SG,
I'm excited to be sharing our Patreon with everyone today! If you're unaware of Patreon, it's a platform for users ("Patrons") to support and subscribe to their favorite content creators and services. Our Patreon is arranged into three reward tiers, and it offers a number of fun rewards without giving anyone an unfair advantage towards entering or winning giveaways. The reward tiers are as follows:
Outdoor Cat ($3/mo)
House Cat ($7/mo)
Space Cat ($15/mo)
Our Patreon covers all of the specifics, including further details about the rewards and how they can be redeemed after subscribing.
https://www.patreon.com/steamgifts
You'll also notice the Patreon button added to the account page of our site. This is where you can redeem your rewards as explained above.
https://www.steamgifts.com/account/settings/patreon
A big thanks to everyone, regardless of whether or not you decide to subscribe. It's been a lot of fun working on SteamGifts over the years. I hope to see the community continue to grow, and I'll keep doing my best to release new features and improvements for the years to come. Thanks!
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