Suggestion for a yearly donations of electricity!

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KLiK
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Message 1683989 - Posted: 25 May 2015, 9:41:23 UTC
Last modified: 25 May 2015, 9:49:54 UTC

As for now, SETi@home is funded by 2 forms of donations:
1. a money
2. an electricity (by computer power)

To make a Life easier to us, SETi@home team could make a "yearly report" (from 01.01.2015. till 23.12.2015.) of the totaly hours used by the computer (not CPU hours, a device hours) & make a statement of "donation of electric power for humanitarian cloud computing" with an average of:
- 150 or 200W used for CPU based computer
- 300 to 500W used for GPU based computer
(SETi@home should choose averages for all users).

That way anyone can put that in their "tax return" policy & get a refund of money for already paid taxes on electricity bills, if the IRS or equivalent in their state acknowledges it as a donation.

That way a returned money can be reinvested in:
- SETi@home donations
- computer development
- something else...

What do you think?


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Message 1687403 - Posted: 3 Jun 2015, 18:04:22 UTC - in response to Message 1683989.  

Electricity is not something that can be claimed as a donation on any IRS form. There are a few here who have done it, and I fear the day they get audited by the IRS because it is not allowed.

Only direct cash (or credit) donations can be claimed, as well as donated hours of personal time.
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Message 1687428 - Posted: 3 Jun 2015, 19:40:45 UTC

...and each country has its own set of rules about donating to charitable organizations in foreign countries which would make it an absolute nightmare to administer
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Message 1687431 - Posted: 3 Jun 2015, 19:49:22 UTC

A little clarification on my last post, you cannot claim donated personal time, but you can claim travel expenses to places where you are going to donate your personal time.

For more information on what can be itemized as a deduction, please see IRS Publicaion 526.
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Message 1688035 - Posted: 5 Jun 2015, 9:51:10 UTC - in response to Message 1687403.  

Electricity is not something that can be claimed as a donation on any IRS form. There are a few here who have done it, and I fear the day they get audited by the IRS because it is not allowed.

Only direct cash (or credit) donations can be claimed, as well as donated hours of personal time.

if we are donating a computer (device) hours to some cause...& we power the machine with electricity, which cost money...

so in a fact...you have expenses in your donation:
- money for the electricity

why not make a "yearly donation paper" in which is stated:
A memeber KLiK has donated 5 machines to SETi@home research with total of 33.784 hours of computer time, spending the same amount on electricity for the research causes.

from that, anyone can calculate its own bill & get a tax return.


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Message 1688064 - Posted: 5 Jun 2015, 11:27:15 UTC

In the UK that can only be counted against a personal tax bill to t a very limited extent. As far as I can see, for a UK citizen, there are only two ways of donating to SETI@Home, first is a monetary donation, and second the donation of a "tangible asset" (something you can"go to the shop and buy"), in the latter case there are rules as to the use of the tangible asset and its location both geographical and logical within the charity.
As I said earlier, it is all very well talking about US personal tax situation,, but S@H is a global project with "members" in about a hundred other countries all with their own tax rules and all with their own tax relationships with the USA. Making ti a very difficult problem for a small organisation to work with
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Message 1688065 - Posted: 5 Jun 2015, 11:28:50 UTC - in response to Message 1688035.  
Last modified: 5 Jun 2015, 11:37:07 UTC

Electricity is not something that can be claimed as a donation on any IRS form. There are a few here who have done it, and I fear the day they get audited by the IRS because it is not allowed.

Only direct cash (or credit) donations can be claimed, as well as donated hours of personal time.

if we are donating a computer (device) hours to some cause...& we power the machine with electricity, which cost money...

so in a fact...you have expenses in your donation:
- money for the electricity

why not make a "yearly donation paper" in which is stated:
A memeber KLiK has donated 5 machines to SETi@home research with total of 33.784 hours of computer time, spending the same amount on electricity for the research causes.

from that, anyone can calculate its own bill & get a tax return.


It doesn't work like that. Only cash donations in the form of cash can be claimed. Not cash donations in the form of electricity. The IRS is very clear about this. Read the page I linked to you.

Contributions You Cannot Deduct

There are some contributions you cannot deduct and others you can deduct only in part.

You cannot deduct as a charitable contribution:

    A contribution to a specific individual,

    A contribution to a nonqualified organization,

    The part of a contribution from which you receive or expect to receive a benefit,

    The value of your time or services,

    Your personal expenses,


    A qualified charitable distribution from an individual retirement arrangement (IRA),

    Appraisal fees,

    Certain contributions to donor-advised funds, or

    Certain contributions of partial interests in property.



Running SETI@home falls under your time and services and under a personal expense. Here in the U.S., you cannot claim it as a deduction from your taxes.
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Message 1689096 - Posted: 8 Jun 2015, 5:53:37 UTC - in response to Message 1688065.  
Last modified: 8 Jun 2015, 5:54:56 UTC

Running SETI@home falls under your time and services and under a personal expense. Here in the U.S., you cannot claim it as a deduction from your taxes.

Great, you can put it under "personal expenses"...'cause electricity falls into that!

In our country any expenses for charity, science, education, etc. - can be tax returned...but we need a certificate from the organisation that we have given to them something - especially when goods of service have been exchanged!
In this instance give is "device computational power"...and on donor part there is expense in a form of electricity bill...

So it should work, with certificate![/b]


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Message 1689151 - Posted: 8 Jun 2015, 12:05:55 UTC - in response to Message 1689096.  
Last modified: 8 Jun 2015, 12:52:19 UTC

Running SETI@home falls under your time and services and under a personal expense. Here in the U.S., you cannot claim it as a deduction from your taxes.

Great, you can put it under "personal expenses"...'cause electricity falls into that!


As I just wrote in Message 1688065, in the U.S. you cannot deduct personal expenses unless you earn income from your hobby. No one earns income from donating computing time to SETI@home that I know of.
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Message 1689404 - Posted: 9 Jun 2015, 6:38:43 UTC - in response to Message 1689151.  

Running SETI@home falls under your time and services and under a personal expense. Here in the U.S., you cannot claim it as a deduction from your taxes.

Great, you can put it under "personal expenses"...'cause electricity falls into that!


As I just wrote in Message 1688065, in the U.S. you cannot deduct personal expenses unless you earn income from your hobby. No one earns income from donating computing time to SETI@home that I know of.


Well that is in US...in Croatia, EU I wouldn't need a certificate to show that I have expenses...so it would work here!

SETi@home is a World Wide program...so they should think of all participants!

& as I said earlier...I would give back 50% as a donation, rest of 50% would go for expenses of eletricity & new equipment! ;)


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Message 1689439 - Posted: 9 Jun 2015, 10:11:50 UTC

I will say this once more - the EU tax rules are not as unified as one might expect, particularly when it comes to personal taxation.
Donations to non-EU based charities do not automatically reflect against your own tax, this depends on the detail of the charity tax legislation for the country you are a tax payer, In particular the relationship between the "donor" country and the "receiving" country. We do not all get "cash back" on our charitable donations, in some countries you do, in some countries you don't, in some the charity gets the benefit, and in others there is no such arrangement, in some you need to get a certificate from the charity, in others there is a degree of don't, some countries where you need a certificate you have to submit it with your tax return whilst in others you have to retain it only submitting it if requested.
All this makes it very difficult for a charity (or other non-profit organisation) to administer the myriad of schemes that exist between the charity and the donor.



(I've spent too much time over the years trying to sort this out for a number of small charities with very variable results....)
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Message 1689449 - Posted: 9 Jun 2015, 11:13:08 UTC - in response to Message 1689439.  

I will say this once more - the EU tax rules are not as unified as one might expect, particularly when it comes to personal taxation.
Donations to non-EU based charities do not automatically reflect against your own tax, this depends on the detail of the charity tax legislation for the country you are a tax payer, In particular the relationship between the "donor" country and the "receiving" country. We do not all get "cash back" on our charitable donations, in some countries you do, in some countries you don't, in some the charity gets the benefit, and in others there is no such arrangement, in some you need to get a certificate from the charity, in others there is a degree of don't, some countries where you need a certificate you have to submit it with your tax return whilst in others you have to retain it only submitting it if requested.
All this makes it very difficult for a charity (or other non-profit organisation) to administer the myriad of schemes that exist between the charity and the donor.



(I've spent too much time over the years trying to sort this out for a number of small charities with very variable results....)

For the countries that you DO get some money back for a donations...a certificate with a RUN TIME per device & number of RETURNED RESULTS in past years, is enough to get me started...

Also a paper from myself will be written explaining a donation of computer power to non-profil charity organisation, calculation of 90W per laptop & 200W per computer, making a total expense of XYZ Wh, which is (in Croatia) 8h of lower price & 16h of higher price in my tarrif & the total amount of money spent on donation of electricity...alongside with bills paid for electricity!

So yes, it will be small calculation from my side & small 1-2 A4 papers writen...but it might give me back several 100€...& 100€ is what I spent on electricity alone for running 3x computers & 2x laptops 24/7 @ my home.
;)


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Message 1689526 - Posted: 9 Jun 2015, 22:38:17 UTC - in response to Message 1689449.  

calculation of 90W per laptop & 200W per computer

The problem here is that off that 90W or 200W, you're using only a small amount for the calculation of the actual science and therefore you'll need to measure very precisely how much energy a Seti task takes. Which means that you'll have to deduct the electricity used by all the other hardware at the time being used, because it isn't being used for the science.

This means that every time the OS writes something of itself to disk, that you cannot add that electricity use to the science. USB ports, hard drives, optical drives, audio cards, speakers, monitors, game controllers, the keyboard, the mouse, memory, the operating system, all the other non-BOINC and non-Seti programs that run on the computer. All use electricity that you cannot add on to the electricity being used for the science.

When doing work on the GPU you have to divide what of the electricity is being used for calculations of the science, from what's used to draw everything on the monitor(s). Moving the mouse and touching the keyboard uses extra electricity on the CPU, but neither is used for the science. Even at idle the computer uses electricity, that you cannot count towards the science.

You can't ask of the project to calculate the electricity use either, as that would mean they'd have to get every kind of computer combination known to man in house and measure them all, something that's undoable for a shoestring project. Nothing said about the amount of man-hours that that's going to cost, that you aren't paying for.
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Message 1689750 - Posted: 10 Jun 2015, 10:53:12 UTC - in response to Message 1689526.  

calculation of 90W per laptop & 200W per computer

The problem here is that off that 90W or 200W, you're using only a small amount for the calculation of the actual science and therefore you'll need to measure very precisely how much energy a Seti task takes. Which means that you'll have to deduct the electricity used by all the other hardware at the time being used, because it isn't being used for the science.

This means that every time the OS writes something of itself to disk, that you cannot add that electricity use to the science. USB ports, hard drives, optical drives, audio cards, speakers, monitors, game controllers, the keyboard, the mouse, memory, the operating system, all the other non-BOINC and non-Seti programs that run on the computer. All use electricity that you cannot add on to the electricity being used for the science.

When doing work on the GPU you have to divide what of the electricity is being used for calculations of the science, from what's used to draw everything on the monitor(s). Moving the mouse and touching the keyboard uses extra electricity on the CPU, but neither is used for the science. Even at idle the computer uses electricity, that you cannot count towards the science.

You can't ask of the project to calculate the electricity use either, as that would mean they'd have to get every kind of computer combination known to man in house and measure them all, something that's undoable for a shoestring project. Nothing said about the amount of man-hours that that's going to cost, that you aren't paying for.

That is easy...SETi@home is done only on GPUs! So every GPU uses a definite amount of Wh, which is listed here: http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/

So all you have to do is by device h * GPU W used...you get a total of Wh spent on SETi@home!


But that is only my example...'cause my CPUs are dedicated to do science on WCG projects (see signature)...and for their calculation is used all of computer power, but if we want - only CPU W can be used, alonside with RAM W...but also you have to add a little bit of HDD W & network W...
Also a network bill is also used for communication...but don't know how much data is used for transmission of download from & upload to SETi@home...but I use FLAT @home...so don't know how much of % of average of 150GB monthy I use for WCG & SETi@home...

So it's better to use a 100-150W aproximation for the device used on CPU calculation...


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Message 1694082 - Posted: 20 Jun 2015, 20:58:02 UTC - in response to Message 1683989.  

I cant get a tax refund from USA. I am a swede living here in sweden. If I worked over there I might have had get a tax refund from USA but unfortnantly I dont!

I can "just" donate my computers worktime!
Live long and prosper!
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Message 1694858 - Posted: 23 Jun 2015, 13:53:03 UTC - in response to Message 1694082.  

I cant get a tax refund from USA. I am a swede living here in sweden. If I worked over there I might have had get a tax refund from USA but unfortnantly I dont!

I can "just" donate my computers worktime!

U do what u want to do...I'll make a statement like these with my numbers inside & dates from 01/01 to 31/12 this year...it will be also translated to Croatian!
also, with that I'll list this...to show the devices I have on SETi@home...
then, I'll show the ratings 4 my listed GPUs in a statement...a ratings of W is going to come from here...& in that statement I'll say that my computers were on 24h, with total consumption of GPU is xx Wh...making total of xxx W per year...

also, a adding of EXTRA electricity bill will be provided from the power company...alongside with 12 bills for every month...
& ask that the amount of xxx W in currency be accepted as a donation - as a expence I had for providing the results to SETi@home!
& also the link between a my Croatian society & SETi@home, listed here...

the same thing goes 4 WCG & every CPU I have there...
;)


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Questions and Answers : Wish list : Suggestion for a yearly donations of electricity!


 
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