[Noisebridge-discuss] Fundraising and membership at NB

Sai Emrys noisebridge at saizai.com
Mon Jun 21 17:22:32 UTC 2010


On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 10:12 AM, Sean Cusack <sean.p.cusack at gmail.com> wrote:
> The only question - do you get to write this off on your taxes (i.e. is
> it a donation, or am I on the books as an official "member", and therefore
> can't take it as an exemption).

That's gray.

I would lean towards "no", in that anything labeled a "membership"
will be interpreted as "membership fees" in that tax sense, which are
not tax-deductible because you're getting something in return.
Remember, tax-purposes "membership" and corporation-purposes
"Membership" are distinct and only coincidentally named things.

"Donations" are tax-deductible because (supposedly) you're not benefiting.


Pragmatically speaking though? It doesn't matter and you shouldn't
worry about it.

Unless you're using the full 1040 (not the EZ), you can't write it off
in the first place, and most likely your standard exemption is higher
than the total of your donations / membership fees anyway (which again
means you can't write it off). Plus the writeoff for $20*12 = $240 is
IMO not worth the hassle unless it's going together with a whole bunch
of others.

But if you actually care, I think you probably *should* talk to an
actual tax pro* on this one. I think the above is about as clear an
answer as you'll get here. It's just not that well defined for edge
cases AFAICT.

- Sai

* which I'm not, nor is (AFAIK) anyone else here



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