[Chicago] Open Source Time Donation?

[Brian W. Fitzpatrick]

On 9/6/07, Peter A. Harkins <ph at malaprop.org> wrote:
> > So, if my company agrees to let me work on the sprint for a day, can
> > they write that off?
>
> They can write off the costs of your transportation or materials you spend
> while doing the work, but not the cost of your time, no. In general you
> have to donate specific tangible things for a deduction, not time or a
> service.
>
> I'd hazard a guess that this is so folks don't donate an hour to their
> favorite non-profit at the low, low billable rate of $8,300,000 and thus
> get a really sweet deduction come tax time. If you were the IRS, would you
> want to have to determine a reasonable rate for every possible donated
> service? Or worse, enforce it?

Peter is entirely correct.  I looked into this a few years ago when I
did some pro-bono work for a local university.

-Fitz, just a Google Zombie