commit 8349a682aa28426748a9a7ba5e72bf3e3930dfd1
parent 35fa5ad2955117cf397b72215bbe21a429507e2d
Author: Casaburi Johannes <johannes.casaburi@students.bfh.ch>
Date: Tue, 7 May 2024 16:43:58 +0200
rework thesis context
Diffstat:
3 files changed, 14 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/thesis/chapters/donau_overview/donau_overview.tex b/doc/thesis/chapters/donau_overview/donau_overview.tex
@@ -1,11 +1,14 @@
\section{The Concept}
-The Donau\footnote{short for donation authority} environment includes three stakeholder. Donors, charities and the tax authority. The donation receipt is no longer issued by the charity, but by the tax authority. This makes the validation of the receipts easy. If the tax authority signs the receipts, it can also check them unambiguously. The tax authority operates the centerpiece, the Donau (short for donation authority). The Donau is a server which automatically issues donation receipts.
+For the Donau to work there needs to be one or more charities and donors. The Donau is operated by the tax authority while maintaining a list of verified charites the donor can donate money to. Each charity maintains a backend solution that allows it to communicate with the Donau and donor. When donating to a charity the donor sends the payment together with a signing request (done automatically with the payment) to the charity. The charity must verify that the payment was successful and the amount written in the signing request is lower or equal the amount donated. Next, the charity signs this request and forwards it to the Donau which issues the actual donation receipts. This is different from the current model where the charity issues these receipts. By shifting this task to the Donau the receipts can easily be verified and unlinking the donor from the charity which in turn provides anonymity for the donor.
-To prevent the Donau from finding out who the donor has donated to, the charity automatically requests the donation receipt from the Donau directly after the donation. In order to link the donation to the donor so that the donation receipt cannot be used by someone else, the donor's unrecognizable tax identification number is also sent to the Donau via charity at the same time. The donation receipts issued by the charity contains this blinded id number (see chapter x.x blinded signatures).
+Upon receiving the signed signing request from the charity, the Donau must verify the charity signature and check for any legal restrictions imposed by law, such as a yearly donation limit. After successful verification the Donau creates a donation receipt which is sent to the Donor. The receipt gets saved on the donors device for later. This process repeats for every donation. At the end of the year the donor may have accumulated a bunch of these donation receipts.
-Of course, not everyone can pretend to be a charity. Each charity must be registered by the Donau in advance and specify a donation limit per year, which cannot be exceeded.
+When it is time for the tax declaration (usually at the end of the year) the donor has to request a final statement from the Donau, summarizing all the donation receipts in a single donation statement in the form of a QR-Code. This step not only protects the privacy of the donor by combining the amounts of the donation receipts in a single total amount but also makes it easier for the tax authority to then verify the donation by checking a single QR-Code which is seperate. The donation statement can be requested multiple times during the year for save keeping (e.g by printing out the QR-Code). The latest donation statements will contain both the old receipts (from a previous statement) and the new donation receipts. All the donor has to do is to send the donation statement or multiple (only the latest one counts though) to the tax authority (e.g. together with the other tax documents needed for the tax declaration). The final check is made by the tax authority, by checking the QR-Code (the donation statement). If valid this is proof that the donor indeed has donated the amount claimed.
+
+The tax authority will not have any information to what charity the donor has donated money. All that the tax authority knows is that the donation was made to one of the approved charites and the total amount of all donations made throughout the year. This way the donor could make an anonymous donation and still have enough proof to deduct the amount form taxes. By keeping track of how much money a charity has received in donations per year and how much a donor has donated throughout the year, tax fraud is essentially eliminated.
+
+% TODO: explain figure, more details like blind signatures?
-Before the donor can submit the donation receipts in order to claim the tax deduction, the donor must have the donation receipts compiled by the Donau into a donation statement. The statement contains simply the total donation amount, the corresponding year and the tax id. The donation statement can then be submitted by the donor to the tax authority with the tax return. The tax authority therefore only need to check manually one donation statement instead of multiple donation receipts. The validation process is intentional separated from the Donau for simplicity and privacy reasons. If the receipts are grouped and submitted directly to Donau, the tax id must already be known here. This can allow conclusions to be drawn about donations made, based on the donation amounts. See Figure \ref{fig:stakeholders} \pageref{fig:stakeholders}
\begin{figure}[ht]
\begin{center}
\begin{tikzpicture}
diff --git a/doc/thesis/chapters/intro/introduction.tex b/doc/thesis/chapters/intro/introduction.tex
@@ -1,12 +1,12 @@
\section{Motivation}
-Donations can often be deducted from taxes. To do so, donors must submit donation receipts to the tax authorities. This is not only tedious for the donors, who have to keep and collect the donation receipts, but also for the tax authorities, who have to ensure the authenticity of the receipts. It is often not possible or involves disproportionate effort to validate the donation receipts. Furthermore, donation receipts are usually handled in plain text. Donations receipts are often sensitive data where loss can lead to problems. For example, a donation to an AIDS aid organization can lead to conclusions that could be unpleasant for the donor.
+To anonymously donate to a charity and have that donation be deducted from taxes is often not possible. Large enough donations done anonymously using cash may need to be verified (if requested) when attempting to deduct the donation from taxes. The donor would then have to present some sort of evidence in form of a receipt which would deanonymize his donation to the charity. Furthermore, this process can be time consuming, involving a disproportionate amount of effort for the tax authorities.
\section{Goals}
-The aim of this bachelor thesis is to assess the current situation in the area of donation deduction and to formulate and implement a program solution for the problems described in the motivation section.
-The system aims to address these main problems:
+The aim of this bachelor thesis is to assess the current situation in the area of donation deduction and to formulate and implement a solution for the problems described above. The main goals are the following:
+
\begin{itemize}
- \item privacy friendliness
- \item a simple and fast validation process
- \item user friendliness
+ \item The Donau should enable donors to donate anonymously and still be able to deduct the amount from the taxes.
+ \item These donations should be verfiable by simply scanning a QR-Code
+ \item Great usability for both the donor and tax authorities to make the process as easy as possible.
+ \item Eliminate tax fraud with donations that where not actually made
\end{itemize}
-The whole system must be implemented as free software and be payment system independent. Another goal is to integrate the functionality into the GNU Taler payment system as an example.
diff --git a/doc/thesis/thesis.pdf b/doc/thesis/thesis.pdf
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