Archive for the ‘Charities’ Category
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.
A Shot At Charities
One of my favorite places to get tax information is Taxgirl. I mean this as a compliment but she’s not your typical tax attorney. She can take an issue and break it down and write about it in an easy to understand way. It’s a daily read of mine.
Her latest piece is on charitable organizations. Yesterday, the IRS took away the tax exempt status of around 275,000 organizations because they failed to file their returns. She talks about how the rules changed in 2006 for smaller charities and that with three years of missed returns, a lot of organizations find themselves in hot water. She also recommends that you check out the IRS website and in a week or two, Publication 78 because that will show you which organizations lost their status so you can make sure the charities you give to are still considered charitable organizations for tax purposes.