[Noisebridge-discuss] Fundraising and membership at NB

[Ryan Castellucci]

There a probably a fair number of people at noisebridge who make
enough money that they itemize.  I'm not sure what the exact threshold
is, but somewhere around ~$85k/yr, it becomes worth itemizing at
minimum so that you can deduct state income tax from your federal
return. (I am also not an accountant, but I have very easy access to a
very good one and have discussed this particular thing with said
accountant)

On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 10:22 AM, Sai Emrys <noisebridge at saizai.com> wrote:
> 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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-- 
Ryan Castellucci http://ryanc.org/