Daniel,

The obstacles you list do more than complicate a tiered-fee
discussion—they question the wisdom of keeping the RIPE NCC
incorporated in the Netherlands at all:

Physical access – Visa barriers exclude members from GM
participation.

Depends on the country/region hosting the GM. Not Dutch specific.

Geopolitical neutrality – The host state has used armed force
against several member economies.

So how is this relevant? Main criteria should be 'rule of law', NL is complaint.

Sanctions exposure – EU measures already restrict Russian, Iranian,
Syrian and other members.

Those 3 countries have no 'rule of law' and two have active hostile (state) operations ongoing against other 'RIPE covered' countries. Some residents or operators from these countries might view sanctions as unwarrented, unwelcome and possibly unfair. But hey, if you as a country behave like a baboon there are consequences, these consequences are very visible in 'rule of law' countries while 'other' countries might be more or less 'in orbit' of these bad actors.

Tax rigidity – Dutch rules are cited as blocking a usage-based
charging model adopted by every other RIR.

The NL tax climate is very business friendly, the fact that RIPE can have 40mio in reserves is testament to this. The issue here is more of ensuring RIPE gets the right statute. Is it a non-profit, ie a resource holder admin office with some extra non profit activities, or is it a full commercial company selling scarce resources. If the latter, even being a association when you run a commercial activity you will be treated as a commercial entity, for tax reasons but also for competition reasons. RIPE primary goal is to stay in the 'non-profit' bracket as this is best for the members.

If the legal and fiscal climate in the Netherlands cannot accommodate a
cost-causation fee structure, we should assess jurisdictions that can.

Nothing prohibits RIPE from using this fee structure as long as you keep the above in mind.

On Sat, 2025-05-31 at 09:36 +0200, Daniel Suchy via members-discuss
wrote:
> I never said that the layered model would ruin RIPE. That's your
> personal lie.
>
> If we want to compare with other RIRs, we should not cherry-pick just
> some aspects. In a similar comparison, we must also take into
> account
> the size of the budget and what the money is spent on and where. It's
> not just about implementing a layered model and problem is solved.
>
> It is also true that each RIR lives in a slightly different legal
> environment. And among other things, the tax implications of the
> tiered
> model must also be well evaluated.
>
> In our legal environment, tax authorities may assess the tiered model
> as
> a provision of a service. Besides, it was an argument at a time when
> the
> tiered model was abandoned in RIPE (which many have already
> forgotten).
>
> The argument that they have it that way in the US or Africa probably
> won't hold up at all before the European (Dutch) tax office. Non-
> profit
> organizations usually have some tax breaks. But if the tax office
> determines that it is a regular service, the tax breaks will
> disappear.
>
> And from my perspective, a better solution is for the money to stay
> in
> the community. Not in some government budget.
>
> - Daniel
>
>
> On 5/31/25 9:19 AM, Jean Salim wrote:
> > Please open an IPv6 transition thread and stop the disinformation
> > in this
> > thread.
> > Speaking of which, as pointed out hundred of times, all other RIRs
> > have
> > successfully implemented tiered charging schemes, some of them with
> > weighted voting power, others not.
> > So stop misleading people by saying that tiered charging will ruin
> > RIPE
> > when it's been working fine at other RIRs.
> >
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