[FOM] UNILOG'2018, Vichy, France / petition to withdraw the 20% VAT tax that applies in France to registration fees

[jean-yves beziau]

Dear Colleagues

We are organizing the 6th edition of UNILOG
in Vichy, France in June 2018
http://www.uni-log.org/vichy2018
We will have a school of 5 days with 30 tutorials on all aspects of logic
followed by a congress of 6 days  including 20 workshops on many topics
with a impressive list of keynote speakers from all over the world.

We will also have a secret speaker,  a speaker whose identity is revealed
only at the time of her / its / his speech.
Previous secret speakers at UNILOG include Saul Kripke, Jaakko Hintikka,
Grigori Mints, Benedikt Löwe and exclude Brigitte Bardot, Kurt Gödel,
Aristotle Schwarzenegger, Lewis Carroll ...

Moreover for this edition of UNILOG we will have a "logic prizes" session
with prize winners from many  different countries: Brazil, Canada, Italy,
Russia, India, Portugal, Poland ...

Registration is open.
In the registration page we have indicated that
"These fees include a 20% VAT tax that applies in France to registration
fees"
I don't think it is good to have expensive registration fees at scientific
events.
At the previous UNILOGs in Switzerland, China, Portugal, Brazil and Turkey
we didn't face this tax.
Organizing the 6th UNILOG in France we had to raise the registration fees
in particular due to this 20% VAT tax.
I have recently launched a petition directed to Frédérique Vidal, Minister
of Higher Education, Research and Innovation in France, again this tax:
https://www.change.org/p/fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9rique-vidal-minister-of-higher-education-research-and-innovation-in-france-tax-free-scientific-congresses-in-france
I encourage you to sign this petition adding some comments and specifying
who you are / where you come from, and also to circulate it among
colleagues, students and friends.

Petitions on some popular topics may easily reach  more than 10.000
signatures or even more than 100.000 signatures.
In the case of the present petition it is much more difficult, because
researchers are a very small part of the population,
and people outside of the academic world don't feel much concerned.
It will therefore be difficult to impress the Minister only by  the number
of signatures.
But on the one hand it is important to have a reasonable number, on the
other hand we count on the quality (famous researchers) and variety (form
all over the world) of those who are signing the petition. We are also
counting on  the signature/support of associations and organizations within
and outside of France, like SMF (Société Mathématique de France), ASL
(Association for Symbolic Logic), etc.

Best Wishes
Jean-Yves Beziau
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U N I L O G  -  World Congress and School on Universal Logic -  U N I L O G
Montreux 2005, Xi'an 2007, Lisbon 2010, Rio 2013, Istanbul 2015, Vichy 2018
http://www.uni-log.org/
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