Animal Rescue 1, IRS 0
Sometime, common sense prevails. In this interesting WSJ article, Jan Van Dussen took on the IRS and while it wasn’t a total victory, the merits of her case prevailed. She incurred thousands of dollars in personal expenses to take and care for stray cats at her home and when she tried to deduct them, the IRS eventually came and said they were personal in nature. Tax Court disagreed and said that most of the expenses were deductible as “unreimbursed expenses incurred to help a charitable group in its mission.”
The primary reason she didn’t get all of her deductions was because she didn’t get a letter from the charity acknowledging the fact she provided more the $250 to the charity.