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Posted by AES on April 10, 2007, 10:25 am
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A certain unidentified scientific society (USS) publishes
peer-reviewed scientific journals, holds meetings, gives
awards, the usual stuff.
> The mission of the USS is to promote the generation,
> application and archiving of knowledge about US and
> to disseminate this knowledge worldwide. The purposes
> of the USS are scientific, technical and educational.
USS is a nonprofit, 401-whatever so that donations to it are
tax deductible, though it also happens to maintain a wholly
controlled "USS Foundation", which does fund-raising for its
activities.
The general policy of the USS journals for articles they
accept and publish is to impose mandatory publication
charges for pages beyond a certain length or for
author-requested color illustrations, and to ask authors to
pay voluntary page charges on shorter articles (but if not
paid, they publish anyway -- and the publishing decision is
made prior to asking for the voluntary payment).
Is payment of these voluntary page charges a deductible
donation to the USS? At the minute, they say, "No, it isn't
-- at least not from our viewpoint. It's just part of our
accounting system for the journals."
That's *their* response. Seems to me, however, that from
the payor's viewpoint, it's a voluntary payment to the USS
which, if labelled as a donation, would be without doubt
deductible, and from which the payor receives no additional
benefits of any kind (his or her article would be published
the same in any case).
Obviously the payor can avoid any question by just declining
to pay the voluntary page charges, then making a
corresponding donation -- but suppose he or she stubbornly
insists on doing the opposite? Likely interpretation of this
situation by the IRS?
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Posted by Stuart A. Bronstein on April 12, 2007, 12:44 am
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> Is payment of these voluntary page charges a deductible
> donation to the USS? At the minute, they say, "No, it isn't
> -- at least not from our viewpoint. It's just part of our
> accounting system for the journals."
>
> That's *their* response. Seems to me, however, that from
> the payor's viewpoint, it's a voluntary payment to the USS
> which, if labelled as a donation, would be without doubt
> deductible, and from which the payor receives no additional
> benefits of any kind (his or her article would be published
> the same in any case).
It may be voluntary but it's also fee for service.
I don't know the specific answer to your question off the
top of my head. But my question is, why aren't these
payments deductible business expenses? That would make more
sense to me.
Stu
<< ------------------------------------------------------- >>
<< The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, >>
<< nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties >>
<< that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. >>
<< >>
<< The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts >>
<< to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy >>
<< are at www.asktax.org. >>
<< Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. >>
<< ------------------------------------------------------- >>
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Posted by AES on April 12, 2007, 6:51 pm
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>> Is payment of these voluntary page charges a deductible
>> donation?
> I don't know the specific answer to your question off the
> top of my head. But my question is, why aren't these
> payments deductible business expenses?
I'm a retired academic who can't stop writing scientific
journal articles (ego trip, I guess). So, I keep submitting
'em for publication, paying any mandatory pub charges out of
pocket. No income-earning business involved.
<< ======================================================= >>
<< The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, >>
<< nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties >>
<< that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. >>
<< >>
<< The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts >>
<< to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy >>
<< are at www.asktax.org. >>
<< Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. >>
<< ======================================================= >>
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