Sales tax changes / upcoming comics

Hi Patreon supporters,

Just messaging you to cover a handful of things.

Sales tax information

From July 1, Patreon will begin charging sales tax on certain pledges that supporters make to creators via its platform. This is Patreon catching up to laws requiring them to collect this tax on behalf of various national governments around the world.

However, Patreon have been really good at allowing creators like me to reduce the tax that patrons like you pay. Most of my supporters are on pledge tiers that are essentially 'donations for support of the artist', which is not something that is taxable in most regions. For those of you on tiers that includes a physical item sent to you (e.g. postcards), there will be a tax payable on a percentage of your donation. Patreon has allowed me to specify which percentage of your donation is actually linked to a physical reward, and which percentage is merely a donation for general support of me as an artist. I've used this tool to make your donations as tax efficient as possible for you.

(The 'TL;DR version' of this is: that some of you will pay a little extra tax on top of your Patreon donations to me - in the realm of cents per month. Most of you will pay no extra tax.')

Even though this is a fairly minor thing which is largely outside of my hands, I thought I'd message you to keep you informed.

The latest with my work: Notel

The last time I messaged you in March, I mentioned that I had completed over 100 pages of my Notel comic, and that I was close to publication.

As you probably noticed, I did not ultimately publish that comic. The reason is that the timing of coronavirus made the Notel comic completely out-of-sync with the international mood of COVID-19.

An element of the 'message' of the Notel comic is about what happened when children who spent a lot of time playing outside with their friends suddenly changed to staying inside and watching TV. It is about the social and intellectual implications of that shift.

I felt that it would have been badly-timed and inappropriate to have released the comic with the world locked-down for good reason with COVID-19.

Luckily, the comic will be relevant at another time in the future. I will publish this comic in the future, likely sometime from 2021 onward.

Thanks for bearing with me with this, but I think delaying the comic really is for the best interest of everyone.

The latest with my work: Basic Income

Since my last message, I've been reading extensively about the concept of basic income (also known as Universal Basic Income). This is a topic that I had been quite 'on the fence' about for many years, but I am now intrigued by it as a genuinely workable concept that would have many benefits. After all, we have seen 'UBI-lite' plans rolled out in many countries, such as the 'JobKeeper/JobSeeker' payments that are being made now in Australia following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Above are some of the books that I've been reading on the topic, as well as a number of specific journal articles about certain case studies. 

Over the coming months, I'm going to publish a series of comics explaining the concept of basic income, as well as how it was actually applied in some real-life case studies. I've taken my time to find some good real-life case studies, as I always find that it is clearer to explain things from such concrete examples.

Without giving too much away, I've secured cooperation from several notable figures in the field of basic income, so will work their stories into my comics.

This will be a lengthy project, but one that I should be able to release in fairly regular 'chunks', allowing you to read the story as it gradually unfolds. 

Looking forward to sending you my next message, which should be announcing the first of my basic income comics.

Once again, thank you for your continued support.

Cheers,

Stuart McMillen
Canberra, Australia