January 25, 2001 | Read Time: 2 minutes
By GRANT WILLIAMS
The U.S. Tax Court has ruled that the Internal Revenue Service was right to deny deductions for charitable contributions that were claimed by an Ohio man. The court’s main reason: The taxpayer could not prove that he actually made the gifts.
Stanley Joseph Jennings took more than $12,000 in charitable-contribution deductions over a three-year period for gifts of cash.
As evidence of some of his contributions, Mr. Jennings produced a savings account register in which he kept track of withdrawals of cash that he said he later gave to charity. He also kept a small sheet of paper on which he wrote details of other gifts he said he made to a church. He told the court that he sometimes contributed cash anonymously so that a recipient could not identify him as the donor.
At one point, the court said, Mr. Jennings called his local I.R.S. office and spoke to a “problem resolution officer” for advice.
The official told him that he could deduct charitable contributions on Schedule A of his income-tax returns, that instructions for claiming the deduction were in the booklet that the I.R.S. provided with his return, and that he would be required to prove that he made his contributions.
According to the court, Mr. Jennings told the I.R.S. official, “Well, I’m going to try anyway and see what happens.”
In its ruling, the Tax Court said that Mr. Jennings could not deduct charitable gifts of cash without documentary proof.
The court said that, under the law, he must substantiate the date, amount, and donee of charitable contributions of money with a canceled check, a receipt from the donee organization, or, in the absence of a canceled check or receipt, other kinds of reliable written records.
None of the conditions were met, the court concluded Stanley Joseph Jennings v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, T.C. Memo. 2000-366).
