Taxation of the funds resolved, partnership with Stop Killing Games

Announced by Kian

A Swedish tax question over whether the donations counted as payment for something in return was resolved with no tax burden on the funds, alongside plans to file antitrust and consumer protection complaints across several countries and a partnership with Stop Killing Games.

A while has passed since the last announcement with no public progress announcements, and while it may look like not much is happening publicly outside of the research topics being posted in the Serious channels, we’ve made a lot of progress and resolved issues that have stalled us up until this point, which this announcement will go through for the sake of transparency.

The funds & taxes

In the last announcement, we had finalized the list of potential candidates for legal representation within the fields of law relevant to our case, ready to start sending emails with questions related to timelines, legal strategy, quotes and so on. However, as the funds were still not available for use as they had not yet been withdrawn, it did not feel appropriate to begin these talks should there be any issues with the withdrawal process or tax exemptions as we could not begin paying them without having these issues being resolved first. Not withdrawing these funds in a hurry due to being cautious and not wanting to rush things ended up being the best possible decision we could have taken.

As I was preparing the necessary filings to withdraw the funds, I was investigating every possible concern I could think of related to the funds such as which bank would be appropriate, the necessary filings for tax exemptions where I was then met with the following page in Skatteverket (the Swedish IRS) related to donations:

Inkomster som är skattefria » Gåvor och familjerättsliga fång

Translation: Incomes that are exempt from taxes » Donations and family law acquisitions

This page from Skatteverket describes the conditions that must be met for donations, where the following line became immediately concerning:

En gåva som ges utan krav på motprestation är skattefri för mottagaren (8 kap. 2 § IL). Om gåvan är en ersättning för utfört arbete eller annan motprestation är den skattepliktig för mottagaren.

Translation: A donation that is given without the expectation of receiving something in return is tax-free for the recipient (8 kap. 2 § IL). If the donation is given in exchange for work or receiving something in return, the recipient must pay taxes on it.

As you may have guessed from reading this excerpt, the concern was whether the word motprestation (something in return) would include this class action lawsuit and hence void its tax exemptions as it could be argued that:

  • the class action lawsuit / access to justice is being given / is being expected as a result of the donations for the benefit of the donor
  • should the ruling be in our favor, the resulting settlement would result in an economic benefit for the participants of the class action lawsuit

Since the consequence of getting this wrong would be about half the funds being immediately vaporized due to Sweden’s bullshit perfectly reasonable taxes, I was dead set on not touching the funds at all until we had this sorted out and ensured that there would be no taxation burden on the funds, making them fully available for their purpose: the class action lawsuit.

Communication with Skatteverket somewhat confirmed our concern, donations are only qualified as donations as long as nothing is being expected in return, where the hard part (as stated by our communications) is that:

Det svåra är väl att avgöra om du utför någon motprestation i samband med stämningsansökan.

Translation: The difficulty comes from determining whether you are giving something in return in connection with the lawsuit.

Regretfully there wasn’t a lot of case law related to what would be considered as “giving something in return” as this had not been tried a lot in court, but from what the accountant could find there has been instances where even something as simple as “being a good family member” was legally considered to be “something in return”.

As of the 24th of January 2025, I’ve had the “final” recorded meeting with the accountant after a lot of emails to finalize the taxation strategy for the funds which in short confirms that we won’t have any taxation burden for the execution of the class action lawsuit. Furthermore, I will also personally pay the accountant for their work.

Timeline

As we finally have the confirmation that there will be no taxation burden on the funds (and that they can hence be fully utilized for the execution of the class action lawsuit), the timeline is as follows:

  • Select which bank the funds will be placed in (EST: 0-1 day depending on the bank)
  • Transfer the funds to the bank (EST: 2-4 days)
  • Initiate talks with the legal representative candidates (EST: Immediately when the funds are available on the account)

After researching essentially all options for which bank would be best for us, I believe that we should use Handelsbanken. However, for the sake of transparency, within the public stage (whose date will be at the end of this announcement) I will present the options, the justification for why I believe Handelsbanken is the best fit for us & enable conversations to dispute the decision should I have made a mistake in my reasoning, arguing for a different bank.

While I understand that there may be some thoughts / concerns / complaints related to not yet having initiated talks with the legal representative candidates yet, it is precisely due to us being careful about this entire process and taking our time to properly do things which resulted in half the funds not being vaporized in taxes. The reasoning behind not having contacted them when we did not have the funds available (for use, within a bank account ready to pay) was is that it feels incorrect from a professional standpoint to initiate talks that could very quickly lead to initiating the necessary paid legal proceedings when we cannot actually pay them due to not having access to the money.

What have we been doing in the mean time?

As we were waiting for the proper verification by a legally registered & qualified accountant regarding the taxation of the funds, we (and by we I mean more than just me) have been doing quite a lot in the background.

Evidence collection

Due to the growing awareness in what we are doing, we have been consistently collecting further information through various channels related to things we were already aware of, AND brand new alleged illegalities that Mojang /& Microsoft had been executing behind everyone’s back, helping solidify our claims through the growing pile of evidence and have new claims that potentially link to ours as shall be determined by our legal representative.

Familiarization with relevant laws

I’ve been personally reading through everything I can that would help our case such as EU Directives related to consumer protection, anti-competitive practices and so on to then allow me to:

  • gain a better understanding of what the law actually says in relation to our case, thereby making it possible for me to give better informed answers for legal questions whenever they arise & ask better questions to our lawyer(s)
  • enable me to more appropriately view the evidence we have collected so far and how it ties in with said laws
  • understand which jurisdictions are relevant to this case (clarified by the next point)

I understand and agree that my personal knowledge within law & what I have read may or may not come in handy as at the end of the day it is our legal representative’s job & the courts to actually know the law, but for the sake of me gaining better competencies and understanding as the one “spearheading” the legal action, it feels like an appropriate thing to do.

While I am nowhere near done reading absolutely everything relevant to our case because my god each law and directive is EXTREMELY long, I am continually reading and familiarizing myself with laws at a european level, swedish level & other countries. This was also suggested by SKG (section below).

Talks with lawyers & people that work / have experience within fields of law

First things first, you may have noticed the “Legally Versed” role, which in essence is a role that is only given to individuals that can factually prove, with necessary documentation and identification that they do in fact work or study within fields of law. These verifications are put in place to make sure that nobody can pretend to be a lawyer / download a legal enrollment program PDF and attempt to use it to get the role. Other than the legally versed individuals in this server whom-st we occasionally query to fact check / verify information, I have also been talking with a lawyer IRL (information on exactly who I am talking with and name-giving in a section below) with over a decade’s worth of experience within the field of antitrust; where these talks resulted in the recommendation that I should look into countries relevant to our case due to two simple facts (which you may just see directly relate to the recent research topic):

  • Most countries have consumer protection agencies that under some circumstances have to carry out investigations, representation and legal action against companies when they are informed of breaches; whether they actually do it or not I am looking at you Konsumentverket, you absolute failure of a government agency is up to the agency, but in principle these agencies are on our side in certain jurisdictions.
  • Some aspects of what has happened here fall within the field of antitrust / anti-competition that involve not only Mojang, but also Microsoft the parent company. These are not violations that can be addressed or “tried” by regular people through lawsuits, but rather something that needs to be filed at the relevant agency at a national level where the country itself performs the investigation and issues fines (usually in the tens of millions of € or above). In principle, every modern country has an agency that is specifically dedicated to these investigations that can then carry it out “for us”, meaning there is no cost for us at all; it’s free real restate legal action.

This ties in to the previous point of me familiarizing myself with laws relevant to the case, particularly EU Directives that apply to all EU Member States (aka involving every single country in the European Union), where I then get a better insight over which countries have laws that apply to them which “force them” to impose penalties on breaches through their respective agencies, research which culminated in the research topic 4 where we now have a list of every single consumer protection and antitrust agency within the countries that I determined align with our interests so that we may file the necessary documentation to initiate probes against both Mojang and Microsoft in parallel to the main class action lawsuit in Sweden, because what’s more fun than one class action lawsuit? A couple dozen countries’s agencies investigating Mojang AND Microsoft for antitrust and consumer protection breaches, where each agency, and I quote “lay down penalties for infringements of the provisions of this Directive and they must ensure that these are enforced. The penalties must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.”, in other words very, VERY big fines.

Names, logs & accountability

As you may have noticed in the sections above, I have not explicitly named who I am talking to. This is very intentional, and while I would have loved to specifically name who I am talking to in a public way and have a public record of everything, I deeply believe that it is not within the best interests of the class action lawsuit due to the reasons listed below. It is important to note that after speaking with the head organizer of a movement with similar interests to us (specifically @Social, more on that in a section below), I have been taking recommendations on how I should maintain accountability including a system I implemented a long time ago where I log and record every single communication, call and message I have, with whom I have them in a neatly organized way, so if any issue should arise I have receipts of absolutely everything.

As for why I believe naming the “sensitive” people that I am talking to is a bad idea:

  • I am aware of a group of human garbage special individuals whose goal it is to sabotage this (as in the class action lawsuit) in any way they can, such as providing information we have to Mojang & Microsoft, spreading misinformation and so on. Revealing the names of the individuals I am in contact with would possibly lead to them facing some kind of misbehavior from these individuals, where we don’t really know just how far they are willing to go (albeit given the methods they used in their attempt at exfiltrating data, they sadly aren’t complete morons).

I really wish people were better than this, but sadly due to the behavior of some individuals we can’t have nice things. Hopefully as I am showing through my actions that I am doing the best I can for the interests of this legal action where I am basing the decisions I take off of the direct advice of people that are legally qualified to give advice (such as the accountant which I am personally covering the costs for).

Strategic partnership announcement

Today marks the start of a strategic partnership with Stop Killing Games (short for: SKG), a worldwide movement that among other activities, fights for consumer rights for gamers where our goals closely align.

In short, @social is one of the official organisers at Stop Killing Games who has been a staff member since the inception of the server. As Stop Killing Games has existed for longer than we have, they (and specifically @social) have assisted us in the organisation of this server in a way that allows for massively positive contributions towards our goal - namely the “Serious” system, research topics, and moderation style among other things thanks to them having more experience managing the community side of a movement like this.

Stop Killing Games is a worldwide campaign aimed at bolstering consumers “right to own” and putting an end to the global anti-consumer practice of modern goods/services being remotely shut down or made inaccessible by the seller (account migration anyone?), specifically in regards to video games where an increasing number publishers render their games inaccessible, non-operational or incomplete due to for example shutting off the authentication servers (examples include The Crew, Assassin’s Creed 2 on Steam).

They have direct contact and received endorsements from European political party members, have experience filing things with government agencies which resulted in the passing of a law within the state of California that essentially forces online vendors to differentiate between “Licensing” and “Buying” when what you “Buy” can be revoked from you. This is why Steam has to now specifically tell people that they are not “buying” but “licensing” games (something they could have complied with only within California but decided to apply globally).

One point that I need to clarify is that the funds we have gathered will absolutely not be used for anything other than the purpose of our class action lawsuit against Mojang, so this partnership does not mean the funds will be used for Stop Killing Games; their movement simply aligns with ours especially as the account migration situation directly ties into the narrative of “game developers prohibiting access to a game consumers paid for” where we can assist each other through sharing our experiences and/or knowledge, such as SKG’s experience filing probes with government agencies for the antitrust investigations.

The goal of this strategic partnership is to be mutually beneficial to each other. On top of what has been mentioned above, Stop Killing Games have access to individuals in their movement that could assist us, like lawyers. Additionally, because the European Commission will want to hear from all stakeholders when the time comes to discuss Stop Killing Games, it may open up opportunities for further action against Mojang.

Like any partnership, we cannot be the only ones benefiting from this, so just as we are benefiting from Stop Killing Games, they also benefit from us. For example, if they need to have an image made where we just happen to have a member in the community that is really good at art, I’ll do what I can to prepare these arrangements (to reasonable extents of course, without any kind of obligation or expectation) to assist SKG. We are all essentially volunteers fighting for our rights and benefits as consumers; doing what we can as a collective is the best way forward.

If you’d like to assist, I’d appreciate it if you could take some time to learn about how you can help SKG, notably by signing the initiative if you are a European citizen of voting age which would enable the EU’s executive arm to push legislation at a European level for the sake of gamers; signing it takes 2-4 minutes and it is initiatives like these that make it possible for us as consumers to enjoy the benefits and protections that we have.

You can read the initiative and sign it here: https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000007_en

Just like each and every single one of us here is making a difference fighting for our rights against Mojang, if you’re interested in learning about how you can help fight for your rights on more fronts with actions that take mere minutes and carry no financial burden, you may join their discord server using the link below and access more information related to their movement through the linktr.ee, although I ask you to please behave as you would behave in the serious area of this server if you do join them as it is a serious topic.

A #skg-updates channel will also be created to follow their most important announcements.

https://discord.gg/3PpzFqvhU2

https://linktr.ee/stopkillinggames

A public stage

So this announcement is absolutely huge, where I can imagine it is going to raise questions that should of course be addressed.

Just like when we reached 100% funding, we will be holding a public stage where we will not only probe some of the decisions that were made (including looking into whether what I believe the best choice of bank is for placing the funds is appropriate and/or if there is a better alternative / something I had not considered), where anyone will have the possibility of having their question(s) answered like last time.

To have the stage be as accessible as possible, it is scheduled this Sunday on the 2nd of February at 18:00 GMT+1 (Sweden Time) (Sunday, February 2, 2025 at 7:00 PM). This time was chosen so that both European timezones and US timezones align (evening / night EU time, morning / noon US time).

As this stage can be expected to be very long (the last one took 7-8 hours & didn’t even have a scheduled announcement), given that the EU users will most likely have to sleep first as it is scheduled in the evening / night, their questions will be prioritized. Please write down / have your questions ready before hand, although note that there may be some things that cannot directly be answered within the stage should said answers be determined to be of sensitive nature (requesting sensitive evidence) or possibly harming the case.

Final note

On a personal note, thank you for sticking with us so far, I’m doing everything I can to smoothly move the process forward without rushing things to avoid mistakes, we’re getting towards our desired objective slowly but surely.

If you read this far, thank you and sorry it was that long, I am not suicidal, see you at the stage.

TLDR

  • There was a possibility Sweden would want taxes for the donations due to them possibly not qualifying as donations; this has now been resolved & we have confirmed there will be no taxation burden and that we can use the entirety of the funds for the legal proceedings.
  • We will hold a public stage on this date: (Sunday, February 2, 2025 at 7:00 PM) just like when we hit 100% funding
  • You can ask questions and have them answered live.
  • We will determine which bank should be used to place the funds, where my opinion of which one it should be (Handelsbanken) can be challenged.
  • As soon as the bank is selected, the transfer from GoFundMe can be done fairly quickly at which point we start contacting the legal representatives immediately.
  • We’ve gotten a LOT more information from whistleblowers about things that we already knew AND new alleged illegalities that Mojang & Microsft have been engaging in.
  • Every single email, call and meeting I have is being recorded and logged so I have receipts of absolutely everything.
  • While I am engaging in as much transparency as possible, I will refrain from naming the specific people I am talking to that could be considered “sensitive” such as accountants and lawyers due to:
    • Trolls that want to sabotage what we are doing
  • Refer to section above “Names, logs & accountability” for longer, more detailed explanation (although I recommend reading the entire announcement).
  • In addition to the class action lawsuit in Sweden, we will be filing the necessary documentation to initiate antitrust & consumer protection probes with relevant agencies in a few dozen countries due to information that surfaced; this requires no funding from our side at it is the agencies that will perform their own investigations.
  • We’re partnering with Stop Killing Games (SKG) as our goals align, read relevant section above (Strategic partnership announcement) for details.