The petitioner donated property (primarily clothing and household items) to various charitable organizations. He attempted to keep many of the property gifts individually less than $250 on the belief that he didn't need a contemporaneous written acknowledgement from the charity. For the contributions exceeding $500, the petitioner did not maintain written records and did not get an appraisal for gifts exceeding $5,000. The IRS denied all of the claimed charitable deduction of $37,000 due to lack of substantiation and the court agreed. The court, while not doubting that the gifts were made, held that the record was lacking to support the petitioners' statements and the petitioner maintained no written records and failed to have appraisals for the property gifts exceeding $5,000. The petitioner didn't even maintain receipts for the under $250 gifts and had no evidence that the clothing gifted was "in good used condition or better." The court upheld an accuracy-related penalty of 20 percent of the underpayment. Kunkel v. Comr., T.C. Memo. 2015-71.
Gift Giver Gets No Deduction and a Nice Penalty in Return.
Date of decision:
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