Free Software Foundation receives historic private donations(fsf.org)
fsf.org
Free Software Foundation receives historic private donations
https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-historic-private-donations
48 comments
I wonder if an anonymous Monero donation would be tax deductible. I guess it won't.
It should just be treated as cash type of donation. Get a paper receipt.
If the asset has risen in value over the years, the donor could (a) sell it for dollars, pay capital gains taxes, and then donate the rest or (b) donate the asset and let the FSF do the selling. (b) avoids the tax which means more money for the FSF. It's a common approach with non-profits.
Are you saying 501 non-profits don't pay capital gains? (b) certainly avoids tax on the donor's part, but on the non-profit? I am assuming the non-profit would have to convert to fiat to do something useful with the donation.
> Are you saying 501 non-profits don't pay capital gains?
Correct, as long as those gains are used as part of the 501-aligned mission. Same with donations, they don't pay a corp income tax. This is part of being a tax exempt organization.
Correct, as long as those gains are used as part of the 501-aligned mission. Same with donations, they don't pay a corp income tax. This is part of being a tax exempt organization.
They would generally need to convert to fiat to do something useful, yes, but 501 (c) (3) nonprofits generally don't pay capital gains tax, no.
I don't think they are paying taxes anyway. It's a crypto millionaire. Guess how they are making millions.
And fund wars with those taxes? Monero is literally being your own private bank, there's no concept of tax.
I’m having trouble understanding your comment. It seems to have little relation to its parent.
> And fund wars with those taxes?
You don’t pay taxes on a tax deduction.
> Monero is literally being your own private bank
Your own private bank which cannot interact with most financial institutions and merchants?
> there's no concept of tax.
How do you jump from banks to taxes? Taxes are for the government.
> And fund wars with those taxes?
You don’t pay taxes on a tax deduction.
> Monero is literally being your own private bank
Your own private bank which cannot interact with most financial institutions and merchants?
> there's no concept of tax.
How do you jump from banks to taxes? Taxes are for the government.
> Your own private bank which cannot interact with most financial institutions and merchants?
That's the whole point. Why would an privacy coin wanna interact with a corrupted banking sector? It's clearly not for you since you can't even see the actual point. You can use the banks, like everyone and let them profile (and sell your data), track and own your whole life.
That's the whole point. Why would an privacy coin wanna interact with a corrupted banking sector? It's clearly not for you since you can't even see the actual point. You can use the banks, like everyone and let them profile (and sell your data), track and own your whole life.
> That's the whole point.
What is? Not being able to use it for most things? Then how is it a private bank? How is it different from storing money in a safe in your home? Which, by the way, is more useful as you can use it for more things.
> It's clearly not for you since you can't even see the actual point.
That’s a cop-out, and a circular reasoning fallacy. Instead of making a point of why something is useful, you’re dismissing any questions or disagreements as “you don’t get it”. If someone invents a toilet which instead of flushing sends your dejects all over the bathroom, that’s not something people “don’t see the point of”, it’s a bad product. If Monero has a point that we’re missing and you want to defend it, explain what it is.
> You can use the banks, like everyone and let them profile (and sell your data), track and own your whole life.
Ah, yes, fear-mongering and assumptions with just a dash of false dichotomy, the next step in the non-argument. The only options aren’t “don’t use banks at all and be completely private” or “sign up for a bank and let them spy on you in your underwear”. There’s a spectrum. You can buy significantly more things with a bank account than with Monero. In many countries, Monero is the same as nothing. At best you could use it to trade for a regular currency (if you’re lucky), meaning you’re back at square one but with extra steps.
What is? Not being able to use it for most things? Then how is it a private bank? How is it different from storing money in a safe in your home? Which, by the way, is more useful as you can use it for more things.
> It's clearly not for you since you can't even see the actual point.
That’s a cop-out, and a circular reasoning fallacy. Instead of making a point of why something is useful, you’re dismissing any questions or disagreements as “you don’t get it”. If someone invents a toilet which instead of flushing sends your dejects all over the bathroom, that’s not something people “don’t see the point of”, it’s a bad product. If Monero has a point that we’re missing and you want to defend it, explain what it is.
> You can use the banks, like everyone and let them profile (and sell your data), track and own your whole life.
Ah, yes, fear-mongering and assumptions with just a dash of false dichotomy, the next step in the non-argument. The only options aren’t “don’t use banks at all and be completely private” or “sign up for a bank and let them spy on you in your underwear”. There’s a spectrum. You can buy significantly more things with a bank account than with Monero. In many countries, Monero is the same as nothing. At best you could use it to trade for a regular currency (if you’re lucky), meaning you’re back at square one but with extra steps.
> How do you jump from banks to taxes? Taxes are for the government.
Many reasons to do that jump. I'll give two.
In some countries banks do collect automatically certain taxes that then go to the government. For example in the EU, in Belgium for example, if a stock I owned paid dividends and the bank is the custodian, the bank shall gladly take 30% off the dividends (+ add insane fees on top) and give that money to the government. As a sidenote it's wild that when you receive dividends in some countries you often end up with less than 50% of the actual dividends but I digress.
Still in Belgium: there's now an additional 10% tax on added value (since 2025), in addition to all the other taxes btw, that's always to be paid (say you sell shares of GOOG that went up... Even if you held for years: 10% are due in addition to all the other taxes on added values): and politicians are now wondering if those 10% shouldn't be seized immediately, with the banks collecting the 10% when you sell any equity (stocks/funds) and handing them over to the government. (so by the same mechanism that dividends are already immediately "taxed" by the bank).
"Banks to taxes" is a very real thing. Worldwide, but not in the US, there's the "Common Reporting Standard" (CRS): banks are basically little snitches that transmit all your accounts balances to the local IRSes. Which komrades shall hail has great progress but I digress again.
In addition to that banks have to comply with KYC/AML rules and are expected to do a certain amount of SAR (Suspicious Activity Report) to the government. Government which typically ain't much interested in crime: it's more interested in collecting money (like in the Al Capone case) on non-paid taxes (and the fines that go with it too). Ah, that's a third reason to do that jump: banks shall tell the government there's a suspicious activity from that person, governement then comes asking "where's that money coming from and where are the taxes you had to pay on that amount?".
I don't own any Monero but the link between "banks" and "taxes" is very real: I'm not saying it's good or bad. What I'm saying is that there's a very clear link between banks and taxes.
Now, and I'm still digressing, there are cases where the government/IRS ain't allowed to come see your accounts: some companies and individuals, in certain jurisdiction, have very strong protection against that (like actual jail time for bank employees that'd leak customers bank balances to journalists or the IRS). But, worldwide, it's not the norm.
And as I understand Monero, if someone has a balance in Monero on a self-custodian wallet, there's no bank that's going to report the balance to the IRS. Although now in the EU, for example, if you hold Monero on a centralized exchange (like Coinbase, the HN unicorn), then Coinbase shall send to your local IRS your balance of Monero each year to the government (it's a requirement of the MiCA EU legislation).
> Your own private bank which cannot interact with most financial institutions and merchants?
But you can gift $900 000 to the FSF which, itself, shall, I take it, have a way to transform these Monero into a currency that can interact with financial instutions and merchants right?
AIUI there are merchant accepting cryptocurrencies? Maybe not Monero but, still AIUI, you can use a decentralized exchange to convert Monero to another cryptocurrency the merchant accepts?
Many reasons to do that jump. I'll give two.
In some countries banks do collect automatically certain taxes that then go to the government. For example in the EU, in Belgium for example, if a stock I owned paid dividends and the bank is the custodian, the bank shall gladly take 30% off the dividends (+ add insane fees on top) and give that money to the government. As a sidenote it's wild that when you receive dividends in some countries you often end up with less than 50% of the actual dividends but I digress.
Still in Belgium: there's now an additional 10% tax on added value (since 2025), in addition to all the other taxes btw, that's always to be paid (say you sell shares of GOOG that went up... Even if you held for years: 10% are due in addition to all the other taxes on added values): and politicians are now wondering if those 10% shouldn't be seized immediately, with the banks collecting the 10% when you sell any equity (stocks/funds) and handing them over to the government. (so by the same mechanism that dividends are already immediately "taxed" by the bank).
"Banks to taxes" is a very real thing. Worldwide, but not in the US, there's the "Common Reporting Standard" (CRS): banks are basically little snitches that transmit all your accounts balances to the local IRSes. Which komrades shall hail has great progress but I digress again.
In addition to that banks have to comply with KYC/AML rules and are expected to do a certain amount of SAR (Suspicious Activity Report) to the government. Government which typically ain't much interested in crime: it's more interested in collecting money (like in the Al Capone case) on non-paid taxes (and the fines that go with it too). Ah, that's a third reason to do that jump: banks shall tell the government there's a suspicious activity from that person, governement then comes asking "where's that money coming from and where are the taxes you had to pay on that amount?".
I don't own any Monero but the link between "banks" and "taxes" is very real: I'm not saying it's good or bad. What I'm saying is that there's a very clear link between banks and taxes.
Now, and I'm still digressing, there are cases where the government/IRS ain't allowed to come see your accounts: some companies and individuals, in certain jurisdiction, have very strong protection against that (like actual jail time for bank employees that'd leak customers bank balances to journalists or the IRS). But, worldwide, it's not the norm.
And as I understand Monero, if someone has a balance in Monero on a self-custodian wallet, there's no bank that's going to report the balance to the IRS. Although now in the EU, for example, if you hold Monero on a centralized exchange (like Coinbase, the HN unicorn), then Coinbase shall send to your local IRS your balance of Monero each year to the government (it's a requirement of the MiCA EU legislation).
> Your own private bank which cannot interact with most financial institutions and merchants?
But you can gift $900 000 to the FSF which, itself, shall, I take it, have a way to transform these Monero into a currency that can interact with financial instutions and merchants right?
AIUI there are merchant accepting cryptocurrencies? Maybe not Monero but, still AIUI, you can use a decentralized exchange to convert Monero to another cryptocurrency the merchant accepts?
I'll explain a bit what's going on here. The typical crypto ethos usually isn't aligned with governments or paying taxes at all.
Additionally, banks are heavily government regulated entities, they are almost part of the executive branch. Aiding in the collection of taxes, neutering economic incentives for illegal activities, and implementing public economic policy are common and unquestioned responsibilities placed on banks through laws.
Additionally, banks are heavily government regulated entities, they are almost part of the executive branch. Aiding in the collection of taxes, neutering economic incentives for illegal activities, and implementing public economic policy are common and unquestioned responsibilities placed on banks through laws.
Banks launder money for extreme illicit activities. Look at TD Bank or HSBC, they were find record breaking for laundering cartel money. Your naivety is not surprising since you refuse to dig deeper and discover the actual truth. Banks and govt doesn't care about you. Their purpose is to deceive, steal and manipulate their true motive from general population. They own your whole life.
Chill man, I'm explaining your position.
Also both can be true, if I say that the function of cops is to deter crime, the fact that some cop committed a crime isn't a counterargument really
Also both can be true, if I say that the function of cops is to deter crime, the fact that some cop committed a crime isn't a counterargument really
Yes, it goes both ways but people always focus on monero's crime use which by the way indirectly hardens the protocol. Most people don't like to say it but it's the truth. The world's highest ranking agencies and billion dollar companies like chanalysis cannot break it, which means it actually works and the reason those actors wanna crack monero is because of some "illicit" usage.
It's an indirect audit being conducted all the time. The best chainanalysis could come up with was running malicious nodes to deanonymize users.
It's an indirect audit being conducted all the time. The best chainanalysis could come up with was running malicious nodes to deanonymize users.
It does go both ways, but the ratio of legitimate to ilegitimate use is important, with banks and law enforcement it's like one in a million. With crypto, crime represents more than half of usage by mcap.
You are missing the entire point. The money itself is fake and artificially generated at will by these authorities. Monero and any major coin has actual value because you can't just create out of thin air. Fiat is on it's edge. Look at monero's price, it's growing at record breaking point. Why? People realize it's true value and anonymity/privacy aspects.
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Go FSF & GNU! Superb Christmas news!
900k USD via monero (xmr). Love to see the big donation and its cool that it's private.
Force of Good!
2026 the year of monero as internet money
That's pathetic. ($900K) We should be seeing large donations from companies whose products are based on free software. Like AWS.
The FSF isn't here for large organisations. It's here for us, the public. You can't really expect any entity to fund something that isn't in their interest. Even if they did it would be more for a PR piece and they'd cut it as soon as they could. That's why it's important that we (the public) fund organisations that fight for us.
Free software is in everyone's interest. It's just that if you drag your feet, probably someone else will pay for it.
I don't evaluate it in this way.
What I think should instead be evaluated is how effective that investment into the FSF can be.
I think we also need to think more strategically here. For instance, LibreOffice should really receive a lot more funding and support by states all across this planet. I am tired of the US monopoly (almost a monopoly) here (Microsoft).
What I think should instead be evaluated is how effective that investment into the FSF can be.
I think we also need to think more strategically here. For instance, LibreOffice should really receive a lot more funding and support by states all across this planet. I am tired of the US monopoly (almost a monopoly) here (Microsoft).
A lot of corporations support the Linux Foundation instead of the FSF.
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members
I don't think the FSF foundation has been an effectibe organization for a long time, but giving money to the Linix Foundation is even worse. Look at where their money actually goes - a vanishingly small portion is actually used to improve Linux and its ecosystem.
The topic on whether FSF is an effective organization is too big to fit on a comment, but I'll just add my two cents on how the FSF helped me this week:
I was looking into shared key encryption, found Shamir's Secret Sharing algorithm, found a GNU implementation called ssss.
Thank GNU
I was looking into shared key encryption, found Shamir's Secret Sharing algorithm, found a GNU implementation called ssss.
Thank GNU
related Shamir tools:
https://bs.parity.io/ -- http://passguardian.com/ -- https://iancoleman.io/shamir/
Those companies like free software, indeed. Freedom? Not so much or not at all. Definitely less since the "AI era."
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The FSF goes against the interests of companies like Amazon. For instance, they recommend AGPL for web services, big tech hates it, they will rather rewrite the thing from scratch under a permissive or proprietary license then use anything AGPL.
In fact, the trend is to move away from GNU. Clang over GCC, musl over glibc, uutils over coreutils, etc...
The FSF has an extremist position. Not only they promote free software, but they also don't want proprietary software to even be an option. For instance Debian is not up to their standards because they have optional repositories for nonfree software. I can't imagine Amazon supporting such an organization.
In fact, the trend is to move away from GNU. Clang over GCC, musl over glibc, uutils over coreutils, etc...
The FSF has an extremist position. Not only they promote free software, but they also don't want proprietary software to even be an option. For instance Debian is not up to their standards because they have optional repositories for nonfree software. I can't imagine Amazon supporting such an organization.
That by definition would not be free software anymore
I have bad news about the Linux foundation then.
the linux foundation does not claim to be a proponent of free software though?
How so?
herethere23(1)
The private sector is undefeated in value creation for society