Do you love cats? Do you love every kind of cat? Do you want a house full of them? Do you want a house full of so many that it’s starting to cost you a pretty penny but the idea of not having the cats to roll around with is too much to bear? Help is on the way.
If you can somehow get your stash of felines through a charity for which you help take care of the cats (“help,” as though the pleasure isn’t all yours), you can write off most of the expenses associated with tending to your babies. Previously the IRS wasn’t gonna let that fly but one woman named Jan, pictured at left, has paved the way.
When Jan Van Dusen appeared before a U.S. Tax Court judge and a team of Internal Revenue Service lawyers more than a year ago, there was more at stake than her tax deduction for taking care of 70 stray cats. Hanging in the balance were millions of dollars in annual tax deductions by animal-rescue volunteers across the nation—and some needed clarity on the treatment of volunteers’ unreimbursed expenses for 1.55 million other IRS-recognized charities.
Ms. Van Dusen, 59 years old, is a former family-law attorney living in Oakland, Calif., who lives alone in a 1,500-square-foot home in a modest neighborhood, with seven cats of her own. As a volunteer for Fix Our Ferals, whose mission is to trap stray cats, neuter them and care for them until they can be adopted by owners or released, Ms. Van Dusen provided foster care for about 70 feral cats. Some neighbors approved of her activities, while others didn’t. One, she suspects, threw a chunk of concrete through her window.
The Tax Court allowed her to take a charitable deduction for expenses she incurred while taking care of the cats in her home for an IRS-approved charity, Fix Our Ferals. Among the $12,068 in expenses she deducted: food, veterinarian bills, litter, a portion of utility bills, and other items such as paper towels and garbage bags. The decision, in Van Dusen v. Commissioner, paves the way for volunteers of animal-rescue groups like the ASPCA and Humane Society of the U.S. to deduct unreimbursed expenses that further the groups’ missions, such as fostering stray animals. Early this month, Ms. Van Dusen learned she had won her case. “I was stunned,” she said. “It feels great to have established this precedent.”
Full ride scholarship. Call us.
- Villanova MBA Admissions
Feral pussy, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. [kneels] I love the smell of feral pussy in the morning.
-Jan V. Dusen
What movie is that picture from, and I really like how she is whipping that cat around by its tail without really even holding on to it.
Bess, you kick start my heart!
/Vince Neil
it’s from the article
so does this mean that my pussy is now *officially* a charitable organization?
- Lynn Tilton, Charitable Deductioner
Wonder what her couches look like?
–Guy who after reading this now thinks Dale Bozzio was onto something but just screwed up executing the plan
Meow could this have not been a law in the first place? I’m going to send a check to my local shelter right meow.
Looks like the cat is giving her a lap dance. I think there’s scope for a levy.
Bess any relation?
Please don’t save the receipts.
How could Bess be related to a cat, she is a human!
/Zoolander Quant
WTF? No Paul Krugman tag?
Damn…like Meowschwitz in there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hkcIQxLeVk&feature=related
Smells like victory
thanks, we all watch that last week. http://dealbreaker.com/2011/06/is-this-an-accurate-portrayal-of-a-villanova-mba/
Great, so all taxpayers are now going to have to take up the slack for your hobbies of using biological-warfare against all of nature and all of humanity with your disease-infested invasive-species cats. If there was ever a time to throw you all in prisons for your assault against all other humans and life on this planet, now is the time.
Just like every renter who brings attention to their indoor or outdoor cat-hoarding and ends-up being evicted and fined, and their cats eventually rounded-up and destroyed — apparently the very same results come from claiming TNR cats on your tax-forms.
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!
Oakland animal rescuer who won IRS case loses cats http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/...