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Comment by klamann | Hacker News Reader

Does the Internet Archive have any options to donate from the EU so I can get a donation receipt from a EU based non-profit? I know there is the "Internet Archive Europe", but that seems to be a Wikimedia like thing, i.e. they don't collect funds for the IA but for whatever it is they are doing here (which is not archiving websites for some reason?).

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No, IA is a US non-profit, that status does not apply for EU non-profit donations as tax deductible. There also isnt really an european branch of the IA to donate to, to support the infra/core mission. The other IA Locations(Canada, EU, Swiss) are mostly idependent(probably to avoid any issues with the others, if one does have governance/legal issues), however they share the same mission in aquiring data to save and working with libraries.

Send EUR via SEPA transfer to GB74RBOS16107510000470. (Yes, the page only mentions wire transfer, but SEPA transfers work too, are faster, and cost everyone less.)

Source: https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-make-a-wire-transfer/

Making a wire transfer is easy, but can it be deducted from taxes? That's the tricky part.

No it can’t. Even across Europe it is not a given that the local tax authorities will easily accept the receipt. Charity law is national.

there would still be fees for a wire transfer from a EU bank to this bank in the US, right? And I wouldn't get a donation receipt that would be accepted by the tax man over here anyway.

RBOS is short for Royal Bank of Scotland. When accepting SEPA credit transfer (though they are not legally mandated to offer the instant execution variant), I don't think there is even a mechanism to sneak in extra fees, beyond what the sending institute already billed (typically: 0.00€).

I still don't get it. The GB74R.. account number is listed under Final Bank/Beneficiary Bank, which is Citizens Bank NA in the United States. Where does the Royal Bank of Scotland come in? There's no SEPA account number listed for RBOS. Also, Scotland is not part of the EU anymore, so there can be significant fees when wiring money to post-brexit UK.

Sending money to the intermediary is still essentially free. The likely incorrect assumption here is rather: that it would do any good in this case. Because that only works when the intermediary has agreed to do anything other than facilitate wire transfers (with the beneficiary account number and cost schedule specified!). They would say so in the instructions (e.g. a note on how the SEPA reference field should be filled), if that were the case.

SCT is not contingent on EU or Euro participation - SEPA membership is distinct from those. That is how Iceland, Norway and Switzerland can reap the benefits (the latter not even EEA member, though effective treaties are now somewhat similar). As long as an US bank has a correspondent branch/account/partnership/whatever inside SEPA, they can make it almost free to receive money via SEPA, and then possibly still save on currency conversion and transaction cost as they clear in bulk across the pond.

USA entities sometimes are not even aware that they have a fully functioning euro account able to receive fee-free SEPA bank transfers, simply as a mechanical consequence of having an euro-denominated account. In the past I've tested this: I asked the IBAN of an euro-denominated account from USA non-profits, got warned nobody ever sent money there, proceeded to send a donation anyway, had it work perfectly fine.

HOWEVER it's conceivable that the USA bank might end up charging some BS fees on their side just because they can. That's hard to control for.

>The GB74R.. account number is listed under Final Bank/Beneficiary Bank, which is Citizens Bank NA in the United States

You clipped it, but it's GB74RBOS... and the RBOS stands for Royal Bank Of Scotland.

https://wise.com/gb/iban/uk

That wouldn't be a SEPA transfer since it's a British account right? SEPA is one implementation of the general concept of wire transfer, for eurozone accounts to other eurozone accounts.

The UK has remained a participant in SEPA, even after Brexit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area#Cove...

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