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A couple of years ago an obscure family acquaintance began fawning tons of unprecedented attention on me. She bought me Christmas gifts, a 1-week vacation at her beach condo, and a few months later she told me to sell my old car which was on its last leg, and she bought me a new one(!)
A couple months after that, she firmly and unsmilingly took the car back. She took it back, citing a minor $8.00 traffic violation I got (she called me a "criminal" because of it), and saying that she decided to pour money in her father's direction to help him instead.
Without a car of course I could no longer go to her beach condo vacation, and riding my bike to/from work 22 miles daily in sun, rain, wind, and snow eventually took its toll on me and I spent a couple weeks in the hospital.
This woman has always been a bit intense and over-the-top, and she thrives on drama. When there is no drama, she instinctively creates or imagines some. She complains that she has no friends, and that no one ever calls or sends letters unless she reminds them to. She's the kind of person you WANT to like, because she's very intelligent (but omg she talks ceaselessly and never lets anyone get a word in edgewise), and if you so much as look at her cross-eyed for half a second, or say something sincere that she interprets as sarcastic, she will unleash all of hell's flames onto you. I'm not the only one. She treats everyone in the family this way. And she's always right, everyone else is wrong.
I did nothing wrong, then she blacklisted me from her life. It was the weirdest few months of my life ever.
She drives my brain bonkers.
Digressing back to the main point here: I suspect that all of her gifts to me were for the purpose of writing off gift expenses on her taxes. She gets very pushy with her gift-giving at the end of the fiscal year. While grateful that she thought of me, her general demeanor & personality are off-putting.
Do you or anyone you know ever shower people with gifts with a half-intention of spreading joy, but mostly the intention to benefit yourself during tax season?
I originally wanted to categorize this in Economics to get some tax-savvy people to chime in, what do they think of people like this/ am I imagining this / do people really do this?
Weird, but giving you gifts does not get her tax deductions that I know of, you are not an official charity.
To claim a tax deduction for a donated vehicle, you must give it to a qualified charitable organization. If you give your vehicle to a non-qualified organization or individual you cannot take a tax deduction. According to the IRS, a qualified organization is classified as a section 501(c)(3) organization.
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How did she " give" you a car if she took it back. If it was legally yours, registered in your name, you had the title, etc. then she could not take it back. You owned it . Likewise, how did she find out about an $ 8.00 citation if you owned the car ?
It seems like what she did was buy herself a new car and let you use it.
In most states, there is no tax deduction to be had for buying someone a car as a gift. None for letting you have use, but not ownership of a car. None for buying you some Christmas gifts or letting you use her condo rent free.
Whatever her motivations, they seem to have more to do with buying attention or control over others, and nothing to do with taxes.
I don't think it's tax related, but I would say she sounds a little borderline and I would take nothing else from her. I'd also avoid her best you can.
How did she " give" you a car if she took it back. If it was legally yours, registered in your name, you had the title, etc. then she could not take it back. You owned it . Likewise, how did she find out about an $ 8.00 citation if you owned the car ?
It seems like what she did was buy herself a new car and let you use it.
In most states, there is no tax deduction to be had for buying someone a car as a gift. None for letting you have use, but not ownership of a car. None for buying you some Christmas gifts or letting you use her condo rent free.
Whatever her motivations, they seem to have more to do with buying attention or control over others, and nothing to do with taxes.
She was still making payments on the car. She was the lienholder. The plan she verbalized to me was that she would pay off the car within the next few months then sign the title over to me.
The traffic violation citation was mailed to her since she was the lienholder, so that day out of the blue I got a furious email from her. Over a matter of $8.00 and her now-tainted driving record.
Thank you for explaining the tax matters. So she was just pouring gifts out on me for some reason, then blacklisted me from her life.
Can you see why it's taken me a couple years to finally vent about this experience? It flustered me so much that I chose to deal with it through yoga & bliss & letting go of it all
I don't think it's tax related, but I would say she sounds a little borderline and I would take nothing else from her. I'd also avoid her best you can.
A little borderline may be a good diagnosis. The trouble is that she will never find any fault with herself, much less consult a psychologist. She holds herself on an enormously high pedestal, so there is absolutely no reasoning with her. She's not someone you can have a conversation with. When she talks, she chooses the topic and goes on interminably about whatever's on her mind, usually social justice and utopian matters, and there's no room for anyone else to talk.
No problem for me to avoid her. She just resurfaces in my thoughts occasionally. Truly wish I could delete her from memory entirely.
A little borderline may be a good diagnosis. The trouble is that she will never find any fault with herself, much less consult a psychologist. She holds herself on an enormously high pedestal, so there is absolutely no reasoning with her. She's not someone you can have a conversation with. When she talks, she chooses the topic and goes on interminably about whatever's on her mind, usually social justice and utopian matters, and there's no room for anyone else to talk.
No problem for me to avoid her. She just resurfaces in my thoughts occasionally. Truly wish I could delete her from memory entirely.
A little borderline and probably a splash of Narcissistic Personality Disorder as well. The two often go together.
Yup. I truly wish someone with enough clout could sit down with that woman and probe her brain. But she will never admit to any irrational thoughts, choices, or character flaws.
You may ask me any questions you have, if you'd like. The whole thing ruffles my feathers. It's almost like weirdness you'd see on Jerry Springer or something.
Basically, she started warming up to me at a family thanksgiving(?) christmas(?) dinner when it was the first time she'd seen the harmonious way I interacted with my ex-husband's new wife. Those two are now raising my children. Thanksgiving was fine, I was happy, kids were happy, everyone was great. The woman in question probably went there bracing herself for some drama she'd conjured up in her mind, in fact she was the only one who alluded to any hint of drama that day.
In my divorce, I asked for no alimony or anything from my ex, and the woman in question, observing me that day, maybe developed a soft spot in her heart for me (she is my ex-husband's step father's wife, so sterotypically in a divorce they would have "taken side" with my ex. But there was no animosity whatsoever in the air, so she was probably relieved.)
She knew I'd been driving around a vehicle that was on its deathbed, a vehicle which had been an ominous symbol of family toxicity. It had belonged to the step-dad's ex wife, then stepdad took it back, used it as a beater car for awhile, loaned it to family members, then gave it to my exhusband when we were still married. When he & I divorced, he gave me the car, and it just carried an ominous air with it. It had always been ugly & embarrassing to drive. And it was finally on its last leg.
Anyway, I was grateful for every little thing I had at the time, which wasn't much...I could hardly even afford food, but I was happy anyway. The woman in question decided to help me then, I guess. And I think she'd painted a rose-colored image of me in her mind and decided to pour gifts upon me.
But I am no PollyAnna. I think she thought I was. She started to get really cross after she gave me the car, telling me that I only contact her when I need something, and I'm just like everyone else in the family. So she expected me to be her bosom buddy all of a sudden and I tried. All of it was by phone & email btw.
She has a lot of self-perceived clout because as a former military gal, she held onto her security clearance and it got her high profile government jobs in DC. I used to have a Top Secret clearance from the Army too but it expired, not knowing in my 20's how valuable that clearance was, and that it could get me six-figure salaries. No one ever told me that.
Where do you live that traffic violations are only $8??!!
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