electrical usage taxes

[spazzychalk]

i dont want a traditional discussion about power consumption. my feeling is that stanford, being a nonprofit organization, and me being an impoverished entity, and the research being noble and ture, that computer bits and power and internet bills should be a tax deduction as a charitable donation.... anyone? anyone ever tried?

[Ivoshiee]

i dont want a traditional discussion about power consumption. my feeling is that stanford, being a nonprofit organization, and me being an impoverished entity, and the research being noble and ture, that computer bits and power and internet bills should be a tax deduction as a charitable donation.... anyone? anyone ever tried?

There has been some comments to that direction, but all of it is likely bound to fail - your tax authority will throw you out when you'll start talking about electric usage, donation, tax deduction, .... But you are free to test it out, maybe you will make a precedent. Good luck.

[Frylock]

I know this is an old post, but I agree with spazzychalk. If you put a watt meter on the computer and use it only for folding, why not be able to use it as a tax deduction?

When a computer has multiple GPU's with a fast processor the power draw can exceed 400W which could cost over $40 per month. Many of the people here are using multiple "supercomputers" 24/7 and I am sure they pay $100+ a month extra in electricity just for folding.

How is this any different than giving $1200 directly to the cancer society, tax wise?

Any accountants here?

[Slash_2CPU]

iirc, the sticking point is that you personally own the hardware and consume the power.

[7im]

Another sticking point is the valuation of your contribution. While it may cost you $100 to fold 1000 work units, the actual intrinsic value of the work unit donated to Stanford is next to nothing. And deducting nothing is still nothing.

You are not donating electricity to stanford, so you can't deduct that expense. You are donating work units.

But like I've said every April for the last 6 years, if you can find a tax accountant or tax lawyer that will sort this out for you in a way that actually works, many people would be indebted to you.

Use the forum search to read the old threads. No need to keep this one going unless someone has new info. Here is one example: http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1755

[Frylock]

Another sticking point is the valuation of your contribution. While it may cost you $100 to fold 1000 work units, the actual intrinsic value of the work unit donated to Stanford is next to nothing. And deducting nothing is still nothing.

You are not donating electricity to stanford, so you can't deduct that expense. You are donating work units.

But like I've said every April for the last 6 years, if you can find a tax accountant or tax lawyer that will sort this out for you in a way that actually works, many people would be indebted to you.

Use the forum search to read the old threads. No need to keep this one going unless someone has new info. Here is one example: http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1755

Yes (to the previous post) I own the hardware, but I am not trying to deduct the hardware expense.

Getting the work units requires electricity which requires money. I am really interested in hear what a tax accountant would say - there has got to be one on this board somewhere.

I used the search and this is how I found this old thread.

[7im]

In the 6 years I have been folding, and posting on the forums, no tax accountant has ever addressed this issue.

I shall refrain from drawing any conclusions that circumstance might suggest...

[spazzychalk]

maybe we can start a petition drive to send to elected representitives

[tear]

iirc, the sticking point is that you personally own the hardware and consume the power.

Yes.

In U.S., starting a 501(c)(3) organization (and taking it from there) *could* make sense though I doubt if it's doable
without equipment relocation.

Just throwing some ideas.

EDIT: ah, I see Mike Ferguson had reached similar conclusion some time ago


tear

P.S.
IANAL

[Nuggetgtr]

Sorry for bumping an old thread, been folding for a while but never been on these forums untill today and saw this thread.
I was talking about this with a good mate of mine who knows his stuff when it comes to tax, This is for Australian's only tho because we can put a money figure on the work we do while folding using the power consumtion then kWh and we pay so much for a killowatt hour its easy to work out what you have "donated" only problem is, is that folding@home/stanford are not on the DGR(Deductible gift recipients) list here in Australia IF they were then YES we could claim the power used as a donation as we can put a monetary value to it.

So if at all posible it would be great if they could apply to be on the list