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Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr
Tax law seems to be so complicated that it sounds almost like it was set that way so the average Joe would just shut up and pay instead of spending on a tax attorney only to find out a non-eligibility for a tax break.
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Tax law is complicated because of two basic reasons:
1. If you donate enough money to politicians you can get a special tax exemption, credit, etc written into the tax law to benefit your industry
2. The USA uses tax law to attempt to fix social issues. Direct spending on social programs like welfare is unpopular so instead of sending a poor family a check each month politicians created programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit where we give poor families a tax refund in excess of the taxes they paid. There are lots of social spending buried in the tax code.
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Originally Posted by Fat Charlie
It's not about firing money at generic "charity" for tax reasons, it's about structuring spending that you wanted to do anyway to make it deductible. Hobbies, interests and local advertising suddenly become philanthropy and deductions. This is easier to pull off than trying to set up your hobbies as legitimate business expenses: If you donate enough to your kid's little league team, their shirts will have your hardware store's name on them... and you get a write off. If you like hobnobbing with other rich people at the theater and always having great tickets when a good act comes to town...
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Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds Alabama is an excellent example of this. George W. Barber built it and the Barber Museum because he is a huge motorsports fan and collector. So he built a race track and 230,000 sq ft "museum" to house his personal motorcycle and race car collection (about 2,000 vehicles) It is organized as a 501c3 nonprofit so his collecting hobby is tax deductible. The building, the full time mechanics that restore his motorcycles, the new vehicles he buys, etc.
This isn't all bad, the museum is fantastic and open to the public but I doubt that is the primary reason to set it up as a non-profit.