While tabbing my way through alumni.cornell.edu to fork over all the Cornell Fund and class dues and etcetera money to a) help Cornell and b) make sure my deduction counts in 2006 not 2007, I got to thinking: "What keeps me in closest contact with Cornell every day?" Answer: It's got to be eLynah. Which is run at no cost (other than psychic) to the university. The Cornell Sun website runs a close second. Also no cost to Cornell. Hockey and lax in person are more awesome, but they're a dozen times a year, not daily.
So: Happy holidays to everyone out there, no matter how much we argue online ... no matter how dangerously close we are to filling out a Cornell XXL hockey jersey ... no matter how many headshaking posts we make. You too, Rich. And Andy - have a happy. And you especially, Age, for the awesome site.
(Note: If you're a last-minute, end-of-year giver, Cornell says the gifts online have to be made to the credit card processor on its December statement, not the last day of December. Cornell says that's 12/22 and not at 23:59. Get cracking.)
[quote billhoward](Note: If you're a last-minute, end-of-year giver, Cornell says the gifts online have to be made to the credit card processor on its December statement, not the last day of December. Cornell says that's 12/22 and not at 23:59. Get cracking.)[/quote]
That's not quite what they say:
[quote cornell]According to IRS guidelines, in order to deduct your gift in tax year 2006, the gift must be reflected in your December credit card statement. Per Nova, the credit card processing company, gifts charged to credit cards are only guaranteed to appear on December statements until 12PM EST 12/22/06. If you have any concern about a gift counting towards the 2006 tax year, we recommend a check post-marked no later than Saturday December 30th be mailed[/quote]
How bizarre. That's a distinct change in the IRS guideline, which used to insist only that the gift be "completed" by 23:59 on Dec. 31 - and even calling Cornell's toll-free number and giving a human your credit card number by then was enough to "complete" the gift. Now they're saying you have to be aware enough of credit card processing procedures to know that making a gift on December 23 might put it in tax year 2007 instead of 2006?!
What a boneheaded idea, and how awful for thousands of charities who are going to miss out on millions of dollars because people are going to go to those charities' websites for the first time between Dec. 23 and 31 to try to make a gift, and find out that it may be pointless to bother if their main motivation was a tax deduction.
Who the hell is running the IRS these days?!
Here's another way to get a deduction in under the wire:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/business/20leonhardt.html?em&ex=1166850000&en=aa32dd260353a36a&ei=5087%0A
I've never heard of any such change to IRS policy - in fact, what you quoted doesn't say there's a change, they just say that's the rule. It seems to me that its probably just a poor paraphrasing of the actual rule.
The rule is that the expense needs to be deducted in the year its made. It doesn't matter what "statement" it shows up on. Besides, who actually has a "December" statement now anyway? My credit card statement periods run until random dates. None end exactly on the month.
What Cornell seems to be trying to say is that if you don't make your gift by the 22nd, their processor may not process it until the new year, which *may* make the gift show up on your statement as having a date in early January. But that depends on a lot of mays, including a statement which shows the 'posting date' in lieu of the 'transaction date'.
The most misleading thing to me is the "December statement" idea. The statement is irrelevant, its the date of the charge.
This is why eLynah rules. A seasons greetings threads morphs within 3 posts into a dicussion on tax law. :-)
Happy "Holiday of Your Choice," everybody. The solstice is at 7:22 pm ET tonight, so everybody please join me in praying that the big fire ball beats back the wraiths of darkness yet again.
[quote Trotsky]This is why eLynah rules. A seasons greetings threads morphs within 3 posts into a dicussion on tax law. :-)
Happy "Holiday of Your Choice," everybody. The solstice is at 7:22 pm ET tonight, so everybody please join me in praying that the big fire ball beats back the wraiths of darkness yet again.[/quote]
It will. The Hogfather lives!
Happy Hogswatch, everybody.