Justifying why we did not register for VAT

[alberto]

Hello @coral-board, we received a letter from Fédéral Finances. They want to know why we are not VAT registered. I suggest we respond by saying:

• We intentionally did not register, as we plan to never sell anything and never issue an invoice.
• This is because the purpose of the company is not to make money, but to spend it to build a cohousing.
• We pay VAT on goods and services we purchase, obviously, through the vendors we purchase from.

If you think this is good enough, I will go ahead and reply to the letter. If you think we should consult M. Erneux (the socsim was his idea), then we will do that before replying.

[RichardB]

Hello Alberto,

Yes looks good and I think you’ll do good by copying from the statutes’ exposé préalable sections A-C (which I believe they should already have access to). Here a few more suggestions:
Coral Reef a pour but de créer un habitat groupé en autopromotion.
Coral Reef n’achète pas le terrain et ne réalise pas de vente ou prestation taxable.
Les membres de Coral Reef financent et occupent eux-mêmes les logements.

On that note I just realised that 2.1 in the statutes now mentions that the SoSim will sell property rights to its members, which I doubt it could or should, I left a comment in the pre-final version, I suggest we discuss this briefly during our next meeting @Lee

[alberto]

This is now done. I followed the suggestion of the letter to state reasons for not registering: a rather limited list that includes art. 44 of the VAT code. You will find a rather laconic letter in the Coral Reef sosim folder on Nextcloud.

[Lee]

@RichardB

I just realised that 2.1 in the statutes now mentions that the SoSim will sell property rights to its members, which I doubt it could or should,

Noted!

[Lee]

Hi Richard,

It doesn’t look like it’s Article 2.1. Can you please have a look at whether you can retrieve this error? TIA!

[RichardB]

Hello @alberto , coming back to this discussion, I wonder if the property acquisition should appear in Coral Reef’s books, which it currently does on FreeAgent. The property was bought by individuals, without any interference of Coral Reef. Happy to discuss further upon your return.

[alberto]

Yes, it’s not elegant. Will explain my logic at the earliest occasion.

UPDATE: I did, here

Coral Reef société simple vs. accord préalable: understanding the difference and how they connect

This is a post about legal and accounting aspects of our favorite cohousing. While it might come across as boring and pedantic, I feel that I want to understand them well enough to be able to explain them to others – including the tax authorities – should they ask. I write it mostly for myself, @RichardB and @coral-board. Everyone else, feel free to skip. About this post I want to explain why our books are kept the way they are. They intentionally do not distinguish between money giv…

[alberto]

Hello @coral-board , we just received a reply from Fédéral Finances. It contains… more questions, that we have to answer before January 2nd.

In my reading, though the questions are easy enough, we will need to attach the statutes, the accord préalable, the notarial deed for the site, and some bills. Also, probably a good idea to amend the statutes before we reply.

Main question to you all (especially @RichardB): does it make sense to flag this to the notary? We are now being called upon to explain a legal construction that he invented and recommended.

Have a look at the letter: Login – Nextcloud

[RichardB]

Yes I suggest we draft answers next week which we share with the notary‘s office asking them for a review.
On that note, should we and anyone else interested sit together tomorrow or Monday evening to discuss the answers we would propose?
**Update 08/12/2025: @alberto I copied the questions to word doc on the same folder and had a first go so we can get this over to the notary. Would you mind sharing your thoughts, especially on 4 and 5?

[alberto]

@RichardB

I copied the questions to word doc on the same folder and had a first go so we can get this over to the notary.

Sorry Richard, I am on it next week. This week was super difficult for me.

[Lee]

@alberto

we just received a reply from Fédéral Finances. It contains… more questions, that we have to answer before January 2nd.

Never a dull moment ! Thanks a lot @RichardB and @alberto for taking this up!

[alberto]

Ok, with Richard on a break and Lucia also not available, I can see that the easiest is that I finish this task myself.

What I need is still for @joannes to give me the current version of the statutes. Deadline 2nd of Jan, so next week.

[joannes]

I’m updating the version that is now live with some identifying data for about 8 people, who have been requested to provide me with the information by tomorrow.

[alberto]

@joannes

some identifying data for about 8 people, who have been requested to provide me with the information by tomorrow.

Thanks for letting me know. This will work.

The part that will not work, @coral-board , is that we do not have the time to show this to the notary, who probably is on holiday, as is Richard. I don’t think it’s a huge deal.

[RichardB]

Hello @joannes , just in case, you should be able to find the personal data of all full members in the latest accord préalable in the Team Finance folder.

[joannes]

I did not know. Too bad. We should have a single source of all members information, and not a text (document) but rather in a table (spreadsheet).

[alberto]

This task is now complete. What I did:

• Log onto MyMinFin and choose my capacity as a representative of Coral Reef
• Mes interactions.
• Since you can only submit a single file, but the .zip format is admitted, I uploaded a zipped version of this folder. It contains the letter and copies of the relevant documents.

Unfortunately MyMinFin does not keep track of the interactions, but I did receive a pop-up message with a confirmation that the file had been correctly uploaded.

Now we wait.

[Lee]

@joannes

We should have a single source of all members information, and not a text (document) but rather in a table (spreadsheet).

We do have that, in the file called “Registry of members”. The document also used to have national numbers, but these were removed at some point out of a concern for privacy.

The document is saved in Onboarding > More information about the Reeflings: Login – Nextcloud

(I sent you the link on Signal when you asked at the time - apologies if that got lost somehow)

[alberto]

@coral-board latest installment of this saga: I received an email (not a MyMinfin letter) from a different person at Fédéral Finances, with more questions. The questions seemed easy, so I just replied, and you will find the mail and my reply here.