On Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 06:19 AM, Bärbel Stephenson wrote:

If I collect money to pay for a group, that money would be counted as my income (since I would have to collect it) and would be taken off the income I have to live on as legally I would have to declare it.

I thought this was true too, which is one reason I stopped asking for donations to keep a website going in the past (after having spoken to an IRS rep who said if you are collecting money you would have to declare the website as a business, etc.)

Anyway, the way around that, at least here in the U.S., is that people can give small gifts of money to other people, which is not a tax event for either the giver or receiver. So, for the groups.io Premium group I co-own, I now receive small monetary gifts from my friends in the group. The actual limit on gift amount is I believe pretty high, something like $14,000, so a gift of $10-20 each from a group of people is hopefully easy-peasy.