ForumsTaxes and Payroll

In general, you cannot deduct the value of time or services provided voluntarily, but you can deduct the cost of transportation to and from the location if the service is being provided for a qualified organization (a school district that exists solely for educational purposes would qualify) -- that is, so long as your business does not receive or expect to receive an economic benefit from the organization.

So neither a company nor its employees gain anything tax-wise from the hours spent volunteering, but the company could reimburse employees for travel expenses and claim that as a deduction, or (probably better) employees could track it themselves and claim it as a deduction on their personal taxes returns. If the school district did business with the company, however, no part of a donation to that organization would be deductible.

IRS Pub. 526 has the rules. Hope this helps.

Glad I could help!

That is why there are Accountants and accountants and guys who do income taxes.
And then there is the I R S who does (a small number of) audits.
As Lighthouse said "In general, you cannot deduct the value of time or services".
Volunteering for the sake of volunteering (like we are doing on this site) is to help others.
LUCKIEST

L T, Yes you are right. As you said "transportation costs, fuel costs for your trucks and mowers, supply costs for fertilizers, pests, and weed controls" are all business expenses and should increase your Cost of Sales
and reduce your Gross Profit. As I said last time, there are Accountants and there are accountants.
LUCKIEST

In the lawn care business, the unique equipment and supplies you must purchase in order to provide that service to the church would be deductible, but starting this year (according to my accountant), if your deductible donations will exceed $500 total for the year, you'll need receipts for the items/supplies you bought and a letter from the church reflecting a corresponding donation of those items/supplies to them.

Leadership and organizational development are what I do for a living, and I do a lot of it for major charities each year -- so I'm pretty sure my accountant is on the mark here. Charities list me as a contributor of the dollar amount equal to the value of my time, but I cannot deduct that on my taxes (only my travel costs).

Hope this helps.

BDS, Your remark about "tax credit" is interesting.
Where on the tax return does this tax credit appear??
Thanks, LUCKIEST

That's beyond my scope of knowledge. I do know that down here (south Texas) tax credits were instituted for property investments and rehabilitations after Rita and Katrina, and I think there are some specific considerations for residential property leased to non-profits that serve the victims -- but I really don't have any first hand experience with that, so I can't be more specific. Maybe there are credits like that in your region (SC, right?) from similar federally-declared disasters.