Charitable deduction allowed for expenses of cat rescue organization volunteer.

• Author: Beavers, James A.

The Tax Court allowed a taxpayer to take a charitable deduction for expenses she incurred while taking care of cats for a charitable organization dedicated to cat neutering and rescue because her expenses were incident to services provided to a charitable organization.

Background

Jan Van Dusen, a resident of Oakland, California, is an attorney who cared for cats in her private residence in 2004. Van Dusen volunteered for a Sec. 501(c)(3) charitable organization called Fix Our Ferals (FOF), whose mission is to engage in "trap-neuter-return" activities, which consist of trapping feral cats, neutering them, obtaining necessary medical treatments and vaccinations, and releasing them back into the wild. FOF enlists volunteers to perform these tasks. The volunteers usually return cats to their original neighborhoods, but sometimes the volunteers move the cats to safer neighborhoods.

The purpose of trap-neuter-return is to humanely control feral cat populations and ensure that the cats live in an environment where people are not hostile to them. FOF periodically organizes spay/ neuter clinics and educates the public about trap-neuter-return as a solution to neighborhood cat issues. After being neutered, the cats must be housed temporarily in volunteers' private residences while they recover. After the cats recover and are given all necessary medical treatments, they are usually returned to the area where they were trapped.

FOF is a decentralized organization. It has no formal administrative office. Instead, it uses a post office box, a telephone hotline, a website, and other internet- and phone-based methods of communication. Its official staff consists of a board of directors and a team of veterinarians. The organization relies on a base of volunteers who trap, transport, and foster cats, staff spay/neuter clinics, educate the public, screen phone calls, raise funds, and recruit volunteers. Some FOF volunteers are members of an informal internet message group through which they coordinate logistics and assist each other with cat-related issues. Volunteers also collaborate informally with other cat rescue groups and individuals. FOF does not commonly reimburse volunteers for expenses. However, it sometimes provides vouchers for free neutering services. It also reimburses volunteers for emergency care if complications arise after an FOF clinic has neutered a cat.

Van Dusen's Work for Fix Our Ferals

Van Dusen was an FOF volunteer in 2004. She...