As the new year began, a reader we're calling Betty found
herself bitten by the tidying up movement inspired by author Marie Kondo, first
in her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (Ten Speed Press,
2014) and then in a reality television series called Tidying Up with
Marie Kondo on Netflix.
The basic concept as I understand it is that one gathers
up all of his or her belongings and then only keeps those things that
"spark joy" or "tokimeku."
Judging from the spate of news articles from around the
country about thrift stores finding themselves loaded with donations more than
usual, it seems Betty is not alone in her newfound commitment to have her
belongings spark joy. (Kondo sparked some push back from book lovers recently
with reports of her revelation that owning 30 books should be more than to
bring joy.)
But back to Betty. As part of her personal tidying up
effort, she spent a weekend in her closets searching for items from which she
could part. That Monday she called around and found that the Big Brother Big
Sister Foundation would come to her house and pick up any items she bagged up
and left on her front stoop. They arranged for a Friday morning pickup and
Betty had her items bagged and ready to go.
When she got home from work, the bag was gone and a blank
donation receipt was left in Betty's mailbox. On the receipt was a place for
her to list the items donated and the date on which they were picked up.
Now, Betty is getting her financial records together to
complete her tax return for income earned in 2018. As she was going through her
various receipts for charitable donations, the thought crossed her mind that it
would be easy enough to claim the donation to the Big Brothers Big Sisters
Foundation as a charitable deduction for 2018 by simply dating the donation as
being made sometime in December rather than in the first week of January 2019.
"They never asked me for my name, so I'm pretty sure
they didn't keep a record," Betty writes. "If I took if off last
year's taxes, I wouldn't claim it again for this year. So who would care?"
Betty figures it would be one less thing to keep track of
and, sort of, another act of tidying up.
"As long as I don't claim the donation twice, would
it be wrong?" she asks.
Yes, it would be wrong. Keep in mind that I'm not a tax
attorney nor a representative of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), but
fabricating the date on which a transaction occurs to take advantage of a
donation during a year in which that donation wasn't made would be lying to the
IRS. I'm no fan of lying to anyone. But lying to the IRS comes with its own
special set of legal risks.
I suspect Betty knows this and might simply have been
hoping for a loophole on being truthful. There isn't one.
Betty should hold onto the receipt until she does her tax
return for 2019 and take the deduction then. It might result in one more piece
of paper to keep tidy, but it's the right thing to do.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin
(c) 2019 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
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