IRS Warns About Donor-Advised Funds
Lawyer News
The Internal Revenue Service has issued a guide sheet for organizations that maintain donor-advised funds to help safeguard against abuses.
Donor-advised funds allow organizations to make contributions that are generally treated similarly to contributions to charities, providing them with greater tax benefits than donations to private foundations. The guide sheet includes a series of questions to establish whether the organization qualifies as a sponsoring organization.
In an explanation accompanying the guide sheet, the IRS describes several court precedents, including a 2006 case, New Dynamics Foundation v. United States, in which the court determined that the foundation did not qualify for a tax exemption because it permitted donors to use funds to serve their private interests.
"Donor-advised funds are intended to accomplish charitable purposes rather than to generate fees from securities trading for investment advisors," said the IRS explanation. "If the arrangement produces too much private benefit to the financial company, the organization does not qualify for exemption."
Related listings
-
New Tax Laws Dry up Car Donations
Lawyer News 07/14/2008Car donations have plummeted since Congress in 2004 tightened the tax rules for claiming charitable deductions, according to a Grant Thornton analysis of new IRS data. Before 2005, taxpayers who donated a vehicle were allowed to deduct its fair marke...
-
Judge: IRS can seek tax info from Swiss bank
Lawyer News 07/03/2008[##_1L|1400520827.jpg|width="130" height="132" alt=""|_##]A federal judge agreed Tuesday to allow the IRS to serve legal papers on Swiss banking giant UBS AG in an expanding investigation into U.S. taxpayers who may have used overseas accounts to hid...
-
After-tax incomes and spending show big gains
Lawyer News 06/27/2008Millions of economic stimulus payments sent after-tax incomes surging in May by the largest amount since a similar recession-fighting effort by Gerald Ford 33 years ago.All the extra money helped to push consumer spending up by the largest amount in ...
Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.