BSA finance rules????

[FScouter]

Be careful about what is claimed as a deduction. A donation the your troop may not be deductible, whereas a donation to the council should be. The difference is that your own troop is too close to home. In other words, IRS could claim that that the purpose of a donation of a tent to the troop was so that your kid would have a place to sleep. A donation should not have any trace of direct benefit to the donor. A donation to the council is too far removed from the donor to have any hint of direct benefit.

 

Of course we all donate anyway regardless of deductibility!

[eisely]

True enough. That is one reason that I never deducted amounts I paid for outings I was going on, or fees paid for summer camp that I was attending. But if I do incur an expense for which there is no clear and obvious benefit for myself or my sons, I have claimed the deduction. If there is a grey area, I resolve the doubt in favor of myself. I still pay plenty of taxes.

[FScouter]

The whole area of taxes is a gray area. A Scoutmaster with a boy in the troop has more room to justify a deduction than an uninvolved dad with a boy in the troop. If you pay to go to summer camp as an adult leader, I would argue that the expense was necessary and reasonable to operate the Scouting program. Your personal enjoyment of going to camp is incidental.