motivation.tex (1999B)
1 \section{Motivation}\label{motivation} 2 To be able to donate to a charity and deduct that donation from taxes, it is 3 often required to provide evidence. The donor would have to present said 4 evidence in form of a donation receipt which would include information about 5 both the donor and the charity. The donor may want to keep this information 6 private and only provide a receipt that proves that a certain amount was indeed 7 donated to a recognized charity. 8 9 %privacy 10 There are many reasons why such information can be sensitive and should be 11 hidden from third parties. Both personally and politically this information 12 could be harmful to individuals if not handled responsibly. To remain 13 anonymous donors would have to keep their donation receipts, which would not 14 allow them to deduct the donation from taxes. It is best to reduce and 15 anonymize this information as much as possible, while still having all the 16 necessary information to verify donations and prevent illegal practices. 17 18 %simplicity 19 Tax authorities may have to verify donations manually which can be time 20 consuming and involves a disproportionate amount of effort for the tax 21 authority. The donor on the other hand has to keep track of the donation 22 receipts. It is not unheard of, that these receipts get lost or forgotten by 23 the time the tax declaration is submitted. 24 25 %standardisation 26 For every donation the donor wants the donation to be tax deductible, the 27 addressed charity has to be recognized by the local tax authority. However, it 28 can happen that donations to unrecognized charities are mistakenly deducted or 29 that donations to recognized charities abroad are not deducted. This misconduct 30 has found attention by Michiel Leenaars from the NLnet Foundation\footnote{see 31 \url{https://nlnet.nl/}}. He has noticed that donations to their organization 32 from other countries are sometimes not deducted from the taxes of their donors, 33 although this should be the case in the European Union according to the article 34 63 of \cite{eulaw}. 35