Some of my friends and me, we want to start a community kitchen in my local city. Mostly to foster a community for immigrants but ofcourse everyone is welcome. We will be cooking food and serving it basically.

We already found a place where the owners offered us their restaurants free of charge.

We already have some donors, who will donate a total of around 500 eur per month.

But I want to avoid using my personal account to receive these donations. I know a friend of mine had his bank account closed because of “suspecious activity” and I have heard similar stories like that. Plus im not sure if finance amt might cause problems because of it.

I should mention, i am not a german myself (immigrant with blue card visa) and my german is quite basic.

So my question, what is recomended way for me to receive these donations? Does platform like gofundme or ko-fi make more sense? Probably they will have their own fees.

Anyone who has experience with this sort of thing?

  • woodenghost [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    2·
    21 hours ago

    I don’t really have experience, but I googled a bit and until someone with more knowledge answers:

    • It’s allowed to collect donations as a private person, but it’s better to do it as a “e.V.” (eingetragener Verein / registered association), that also counts as “gemeinnützig” (for the common good). Getting registered and getting the official “gemeinnützig” label can take a lot of time and work. If you have both, the donations are exempt from taxes. Plus, the people who donate would than be able to subtract the donations from their own income for taxes.
    • Yes, don’t use your normal account. You could make a second account under your name for donations. Some banks don’t offer a second free account though. Plus it might still cause extra work if it’s deemed “suspicious”.
    • Yes the finance office will be interested. Technically your “donations” count as gifts. If you don’t take any income for yourself and the gifts stay below 20000€ per gifter total within 10 years, you might not have to pay taxes. (But don’t take my word for it). The relevant taxes are “Einkommenssteuer” (definitely if you get any income) and long-term probably also “Gewerbesteuer”+“Umsatzsteuer” (but for that I really don’t know, maybe even if you don’t get income but do it long-term) and finally “Schenkungssteuer” (if above 20000 per 10 years).
    • An easy, quick and tax free solution might be, if you contact an existing “gemeinnütziger Verein” near you (that you trust) and just ask them if you can use their account.
    • using a normal bank or an online platform makes no difference to the laws for taxes (I think)

    Good luck!

  • notsosure@sh.itjust.works
    5·
    1 day ago

    I support many Vereine in germany… and indeed it is best to create a Verein to tackle all the issues around donations, taxation etc. You can do this without a verein structure, but you will quickly run into legal and money, tax issues.