this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
1162 points (99.0% liked)
Political Memes
11608 readers
1200 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
1) Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
2) No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
3) Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
4) No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
5) No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I wrote a free spec script for a charity organization, enabling me to write off ~$50k in charitable donations for putting in a few hours of work.
Everyone should be looking for loopholes and ways to prevent the US government from getting their money.
I asked a CPA about this idea a couple months ago and was told that it doesn't work that way, and everything I can find on the internet backs that up. Can you provide a source saying otherwise?
I'm gonna agree with you. If OP gets audited, this will not hold up. OP cannot deduct money for a service that the charity pays nothing for. Only unreimbursed or out of pocket expenses can be deducted this way
The IRS actually already did look it over. They decided (rather arbitrarily) that the script I donated was worth ~50,000 instead of ~70,000 as I was trying to claim. Definitely not a full audit, but they already reviewed it at some level and it passed muster.
Right because you're donating intellectual property which is property. And that distinction is fucking nonsense but here we are. I doubt a full audit would allow market prices to survive on that though. They'd be like "hey now, this didn't cost you that." But to do a full audit we'd actually have to fund the IRS. Good luck getting that to happen.
But would not that depend on how OP's time is valued in this case? OP could argue that their expertise costs $14000/hour ($70000 over 5 hours). I am sure that they would argue the hour cost, I have not clue how the IRS handles something like this.
They don't let you deduct the cost of your own labor ever. The property thing is the loophole (but after further research not a real loophole and they will nail you for it).
Yes, but ... if you use your own labor to create a product, and then donate the product, you can deduct the value of the product.
But my point is technically you can deduct the cost of the product. Lets say you knitted an Afghan that you can sell on Etsy and donated it to someone. You can only technically deduct the cost of the yarn, but you're getting away with doing the market value thing. Full audit would nail you for it but the IRS isn't staffed enough to call you in for one of those.
Would the IRS have a problem with writing of the value of the yarn or the "market value" of the product?
The value of the yarn is deductible if you make the product. If you sell the product to someone they can deduct the full value if they donate it while you pay income taxes on the profit. Trying to backdoor your labor as a deduction is what the IRS has a problem with because you're not allowed to do that.
Got it, thanks!
As I understand it, technically the "thing of value" is the script itself - because it doesn't have a clearly defined value you can get away with claiming some fairly crazy valuations.
There's a very similar tax loophole popular with the wealthy where you get a "great deal" on some slightly valuable art, donate it to charity, get it valued by an "expert" you know, who just happens to think it's worth many times what you paid, then write that off on your taxes. Basically free money.
Other than my tax returns from that year? Not really.
I intend to pass the loophole my parents gave me to my children, really grateful for it
You sound like every business man ever.
You must learn from your enemy to defeat them.
This has “I….DECLARE…..BANKRUPTCY!!!” vibes.