commit 498424ac65b95065081844dc0c6c654ee9d4bd90
parent b60903b8ca5f4ef8ef02afb3b352db0278a8668f
Author: Christian Grothoff <christian@grothoff.org>
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2025 16:05:30 +0100
edits to section 2
Diffstat:
2 files changed, 45 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/usenix-security-2025/paper/bibliography.bib b/doc/usenix-security-2025/paper/bibliography.bib
@@ -220,3 +220,22 @@ number = {3},
pages = {256-276},
year = {2015}
}
+
+@article{welling1989smurfs,
+ title={Smurfs, money laundering, and the federal criminal law: the crime of structuring transactions},
+ author={Welling, Sarah N},
+ journal={Fla. L. Rev.},
+ volume={41},
+ pages={287},
+ year={1989},
+ publisher={HeinOnline}
+}
+
+@inproceedings{berman2015donor,
+ title={Donor advised funds in historical perspective},
+ author={Berman, Lila Corwin},
+ booktitle={Boston College Law Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good},
+ volume={1},
+ pages={5--27},
+ year={2015}
+}
+\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/doc/usenix-security-2025/paper/requirements.tex b/doc/usenix-security-2025/paper/requirements.tex
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
\section{Requirements Analysis}\label{requirements}
-This section provides an initial overview of requirements to provide
+This section provides an overview of requirements to provide
donors with donation privacy and tax authorities with adequate proof
that a donation was indeed clean and made according to the rules for
donations in their region of operation.
@@ -17,10 +17,11 @@ modern societies work, and therefore a very political topic that makes both
fiscal legislation and the way it is interpreted subject to frequent change and
much variation. Just like taxation on labor and profits, on property, on
inheritance, on income from investment or gambling, or on consumption of
-products or services -- there is no global universally agreement on whether
-donations should be taxed, let alone on how that should be done. Ad hoc
-regulation as part of political shifts makes taxation very {/em
-context-specific} and {/em temporal}. We are unaware of any attempt even by
+products or services -- there is no universal agreement on whether
+donations should be taxed or tax-deductable,
+let alone on how that should be done. Ad hoc
+regulation as part of political shifts makes tax rules {\em context-specific}
+and {\em temporal}. We are unaware of any attempt even by
large stakeholders at providing such an overview as an up-to-date public
resource, and the cost of creating and subsequently maintaining such an effort
is actually prohibitive due to the need to cover many different jurisdictions
@@ -34,14 +35,16 @@ One should note that, in many jurisdictions, the {\em receiving end} of
donations does not necessarily have or need the same protections as the
donating side has. This {\em asymmetry in treatment} makes common sense: money
that has been parted with is no longer present at the side of the donor, and so
-doesn't easily become problematic. All the action is on the other end of the
+future actions by the donor do not easily become problematic.
+All the action is on the other end of the
donation pipeline, as at some point after money arrives it will become active.
-'Follow the money' therefore makes a lot of sense: while Donations should be
-given without return consideration, but of course there are many financial
+'Follow the money' therefore makes a lot of sense: while donations should be
+given without return consideration, there are of course many financial
transactions (such as gifts or donations from business or lobby groups to
-political parties) that are not as clean in this respect. This calls for
-transparency and professional scrutiny, and the fact that we are dealing with
-legal entities not private individuals makes this much less of a problem.
+political parties) that are not clean in this respect. This calls for
+transparency and professional scrutiny on the charities receiving
+donations. The fact that in this case we are dealing with
+legal entities and not private individuals makes this much less of a problem.
\subsection{Assumptions}
@@ -65,17 +68,17 @@ The basic assumptions when defining requirements for a donation flow are as foll
at the time of donation} in order to be able to add up multiple
donations within a single tax reporting period and validate that
these do not extend beyond a threshold set by the tax authority or
- other regulators
+ other regulators.
\item The philanthropies or charities are subject to {\em regulatory
oversight}, {\em proper governance} and {\em regular audits}, so
- that money laundering is not relevant
+ that money laundering is not relevant.
\item It is acceptable for some third party to be involved, but only
based on Free/Libre Open Source software (FLOSS) and on a zero
- knowledge basis
+ knowledge basis.
%- philanthropies are able to provide valid digital signatures
\item All parties involved own and can operate digital devices so that
they can store digital identifiers, cryptographic keys, and donation
- receipts or records
+ receipts or records.
\item Donors are expected to have a device that can hold a wallet for
permanent storage of donation receipts.
\item Charities and tax authorities are willing and able to run basic
@@ -91,7 +94,7 @@ The central design goals for the Donau protocol are the following:
towards the organization(s) donated to.
\item The donor should be able to claim the tax benefits they are
entitled to without having to disclose any of the organization(s)
- donated to to the tax authority.
+ they donated to, including not to the tax authority.
\item The donor may accumulate any number of smaller or larger
donations towards different eligible organizations (ideally even
cross-border, in the presence of suitable fiscal arrangements such
@@ -107,7 +110,7 @@ of any specific donations.
\subsection{Optional Features} \label{sec:optionalfeatures}
-The following covers optional features permitting a donation system
+The following covers optional features permitting a donation system
to have a maximum fit with as many fiscal regimes as possible for
both informal and regulated donations, while at the same time serving
the interest of the donors in question in the best possible
@@ -191,7 +194,8 @@ cause}
One way to bypass restrictions in terms of allowed donation sizes
before possible ``Know Your Donor'' requirements kick in, is to split
-up donations. If limits per donor are in place it becomes necessary to
+up donations~\cite{welling1989smurfs}.
+If limits per donor are in place it becomes necessary to
be able to assert that cumulative donations from a donor stay below a
set threshold, where the threshold might have a temporal aspect (per
year, per quarter, per two years).
@@ -228,7 +232,8 @@ conditions were met.
\subsubsection{Feature: Unique ID for donor advised decisions}
Also from the side of a donor, there might be a need for having a
-unique ID for voting. In the same vein as Donor Advised Funds, a
+unique ID for voting. In the same vein as
+Donor Advised Funds~\cite{berman2015donor}, a
crowd-sourced version could be Donor Advised Choices where donors can
vote on specific options (``Shall we prioritize stretch goal A or B'',
or ``We see a new opportunity, is it okay to replace some stated work
@@ -242,7 +247,7 @@ mechanism.
\subsubsection{Feature: Compound weighted donation}
-The general idea is that donors can make a single donation, but this
+The general idea is that donors can make a single donation, but it
consists of multiple payments to multiple recipients. This is
particularly relevant for informal donations to the developers of free
and open source projects that do not make use of a fiscal host. In
@@ -392,4 +397,3 @@ the company. This would require a mechanism where charities could
prove to an employer that some eligible person (typically an employee
or retiree) has donated money which needs to be matched -- obviously,
without disclosing anything else.
-
