I finally got around to copying my comments about various things from discord to here.
Also if there still aren’t any takers, I’ll do one more thing: do a rough translation of the association rules template to English to try to reinforce that this isn’t a huge deal.
If still no one steps up, I’ll assume that everyone is fine with me personally taking the Patreon money, putting the game on steam myself, etc.
Now on to the comments on discord, I’ll include the questions for clarity but I won’t include who asked what.
Does a Finnish organization need to be led by a legal resident of Finland?
by default, yes
you can submit an application that costs 100e to have that restriction lifted, but it looks like you first need to form an association before you can apply for that
and what would happen if you quit?
someone needs to apply for that through international mail and a translator, probably
what are the advantages of us going finnish instead of something else?
I’m like the de facto team lead now, it makes sense to do where I can
and it seems that all countries have it difficult for non residents or non language speakers to found an association
Are there any particular downsides to us being based in finland that you can think of?
collecting donations without a permit (that costs 300e and is available for associations only) is illegal
benefits include not being sued in an American court by angry companies
Is that permit a one time transaction or do you need to renew it?
I think you’ll need to reapply each year, at least the time period in it is limited, so I don’t know if you can like ask to hold a donation collection thing for 5 years
And you have to pay out the full cost each time or is it discounted for renewal?
yeah, but I don’t think we should do that before we expect to make at least 300 in donations
The patreon doesn’t count because it’s not a donation, it’s selling a service product
That does remind me, what exactly does being a registered member of such an organization entail? What responsibilities would someone need to maintain as part of the 3 you need to register?
Looks like that PRH page I linked has in the sidebar the actual law translated into english: PRH - Associations - Associations Act
I haven’t read that myself but that seems to cover everything that is spread around the other pages, though it probably doesn’t easily answer all specific questions
Some comments from me to very long not-questions, that I also want to include here:
Tax wise the patreon income is going to become very inconvenient for me in a month or two, that’s why I want to do this now
Also this comment I posted on the community forums: “also I’ve wanted to hold off on releasing on steam until a legal association is set up for the game.”
I think that this just needs to happen now because of tax reasons it’s going to be a pain in the ass for me to accept a little bit of patreon money as I’ll have to do a bunch of tax filings and stuff, but it still wouldn’t like be enough to employ me. That’s why I want to setup an organization so that I can make an employment contract for myself (if the money is enough) so that I can then use an accounting service to take care of all the annoying things
It would be simple to setup a one person company here as well, but that wouldn’t be the same as having an association (a non-profit entity)
I haven’t wanted to do that as that would muddy the things even further. So far I think under Finnish law we are kinda like an unregistered association where we can say that we work together under some name for a goal, but it’s not a legal entity so the unregistered association itself can’t have assets or make agreements, instead all members are personally responsible for any agreements they make to run the project
Out of all the presented alternatives, I think I’m selecting the only feasible one (to be fair only found an association, do nothing are the presented choices)