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That has always been the case. The issue was if she could claim all expenses, only the allowable expenses, or no expenses. The IRS said no expenses because she didnl;t meet their standard of recordkeeping. She claimed all expenses because its deductable under the law. But the Tax Court rejected both the IRS position and her position and set the line as only allowable expenses. Rememebr, she wasn;t able to write off all the expenses she claimed because she couldn;t satisfy the courts that they were allowable and she couldn;t write off others because she lacked the most important thing and that was the certifying letter from a non profit saying that she was acting under their charity status.
There was no ground breaking ruling as the articles claim, it was simply where is the line and standard people must follow. You always could write off your charitable expenses that has not changed in decades. This was about the proof needed to statuisfy what is and isn;t an allowable expense and as we see in reading the actual tax court ruling, she was denied many claims and she was granted others that she could prove and support with documents. The IRS just denied it all together because they probably just didn't want to take the time to go through her mish-mash receipts and poor recordkeeping (and the tax court also denied many expenses for that same reason) but the tax court was able to take the time to rfeview it because they had too in order to make a decission.
I've been fostering for about 7 years now and have always deducted my expenses for food, supplies, mileage to vet, adoption events and home checks. Also phone calls (kept a log of calls). I note directly on my receipts for which group and what purpose, and which dog it went to. For the purpose of having to prove the dog was a foster, I'd print out the on-line listing of the dog from the rescue website which contains the initials of the foster home, making it traceable to me.
Would this mean that it is better to just "foster" and not "adopt"?
Is there a length of time after which the IRS would consider that the animal was "adopted" even if formally the rescue organization still "owned" it?
I'm not aware of a time limit. But then, it would only be beneficial if the dog has chronic problems costing you money other than food. I deduct about $1200 a year between 2 rescues for food and supplies, but then I have in my house anwhere from 1 to 5 fosters at a time. Any costly expenses (vet) gets paid by the rescue. I did foster a dog until he died, but then the rescue didn't want to adopt him out due to his age and health. I picked up his daily needs, the rescue paid for all vet needs.
A rescue organization isn't going to let you keep a dog without adopting it. They need foster homes for animals coming in every day. And they do need those fees for dogs they adopt out. If you foster a dog you will be expected to take it to adoption events and have meet-and-greets in your home or elsewhere with prospective adopters. Fostering is meant to help the organization, and what you are describing doesn't benefit them in any way.
Also, any reputable shelter publishes annual reports showing number of dogs taken in, adopted out, euthanized (and even the no-kill ones have some euthasias), etc. This shows people who support them how they are doing. Keeping animals in foster so someone can get a tax break would hurt them there too. Not to mention it's fraud.
Last edited by subject2change; 01-06-2012 at 02:18 PM..
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