Yes, as the association basmati is a registered charitable organisation, you can deduct your donation from your taxes, provided you are taxable in Switzerland.

Direct Federal Tax:
Natural persons: Donations made to charitable organisations based in Switzerland can be deducted from direct federal tax (Art. 33a, DBG). In this case, the contributions donated in the tax year must amount to at least CHF 100 and may not exceed 20% of the net income in total.

Legal entities:
The deductibility of donations is limited to 20% of net income (Art. 59 para. 1 let. c DBG).

Cantonal and communal taxes:
Donations to charitable organisations are tax deductible up to a limit set by cantonal law (Art. 9 subpar. 2 let. i DBG).

If your donation exceeds CHF 100, we will send you a donation receipt at the beginning of the following year. You can enclose this with your tax return to benefit from the tax reduction.

When the association basmati was founded in autumn 2007, the question wether to found a foundation or not was an issue at first. Be we quickly realised, that being a foundation is not the right way to go for us. Founding a foundation in Switzerland costs between 8,000 and 12,000 Swiss Francs - besides the foundation capital of 50,000 Swiss Francs which are advised as a basic financial stock. Then - as now - this was beyond our financial means and still does not seem sensible to us. In terms of transparency, we are confident to live up to the highest level, withouth spending thousand of Swiss Francs to fulfill the transparency regulations of the Swiss Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations.

To cut a long story short: it's too expensive for us and we don't recognise ZEWO's independence. ZEWO neither has a government mandate nor a legal basis to issue a "seal of approval". Moreover, certification by ZEWO costs several 1000 francs (a process that has to be renewed regularly) and an annual fee, which in our case would be around 500 francs. In addition, in the case of certification, there are additional administrative costs for an accounting regulated by international standards, which we cannot cover with our workforce and financial resources. Instead, we have made a conscious decision to use this money rather for our organisations and projects.

We carefully select the projects and organisations that are presented. We visit these organisations and get a first-hand impression of their work and ethics. If we are not convinced by what we see, we don't publish it on our site.

Of course, this is no guarantee that the organisations/projects presented will develop accordingly over the years and deserve our support. However, basmati is in constant contact with the people responsible for the projects and will visit them regularly if possible.

Since most projects also publish on their own website and often offer their own newsletter, you can form your own opinion.

It depends. There are organisations that are open to visitors or even offer special programs and opportunities for visitors and volunteers. Others don't, for example to protect the persons concerned (especially children).

We do encourage serious, passionate volunteering, where possible. However, we don't support volunteer tourism.