Comment by crote
6 hours ago
Aren't those kind of reimbursements usually strictly capped?
For example, if you do volunteer work in The Netherlands you can get at most €5.60/hour, with a maximum of €210/month and €2100/year. I assume Germany will have similar rules.
€12/hour is just about minimum wage. Explaining how that isn't a salary is going to be pretty much impossible - it'll rightfully be interpreted as tax fraud. On top of a violation of labor laws for paying less than minimum wage, of course.
I do see a lot of benefits, though. There are plenty of people who aren't well-off who are doing incredibly valuable work for F/LOSS project. If you're holding a conference you really want to be able to invite those people without putting the burden of travel expenses on them: a €200 train ticket can easily be a dealbreaker for a poor student.
I picked 12€ because I have heard of volunteers getting that. Depending on the kind of the work there can also be a fixed travel-reimbursement. I.e. donating blood gets you 20€ for roughly 60minutes of "work".
Where is this happening? AFAIK most (all?) of the EU strictly forbids being paid for blood or blood component donations outside of very specific research.
(As a donor I tried to sell blood when I couldn't afford rent and food, but it seemed impossible.)
In Germany you can get 20 Euros for blood donations (at least at the Deutsches Rotes Kreuz).
Why should "the burden of travel expenses" (lol) go away by creating a tax exemption? The organization paying for the ticket will OF COURSE still require the receipt.