Quote:
Originally posted by Tom Earp
Russell, I am not sure who this guru is that you are talking about, but there was a loop hole passed to screw Us so to speak that the only money donated to a local Chapter was deductable only if it was used for an educational purpose, not just or including common area.
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The guru is
Barbara Bromberg of Dinsmore & Shohl LLP. She is considered to be the preeminent tax attorney for GLOs in the US. She doesn't just know about the IRS code, she worked with the IRS to make them as pro-greek as possible. She is also used by many NIC and NPC HQs. Also, she joined
CW when she was an undergraduate student.
I had to pull out my notes, but it works like this. This assumes that the house corporation is a 501(c)(2) or 501(c)(7) entity.
By common areas, I mean hallways, infrastructure, and rooms used for infrastructure (like boiler rooms.) These are not used to calculate educational usage.
If 70% of a house is dedicated use areas, and if that area is a 20/80 split, then you can apply that ratio to the other 30% so that the entire house can be calculated as 20% educational. If this is done, then 20% of any donation made to this house is tax deductible.
Valid educational uses include libraries, conference rooms, study rooms, and computer rooms.
From what she told us, if she is included in the project from the beginning, results for houses have been as high as 30%+ deductible. She got one project for a lodge to be around 50%, but that is unusual.