Is there any program that the IRS offers in the US to make folding tax deductible? I mean folding is not only a donation of CPU cycles it a donation of Electricity.
Let's say it costs you an extra $240 per year to run your PC 24/7 in efforts to Fold. Other than the fact that it's a good cause and it's going towards needed research, there's no tax benefit?
I mean, I can take $240 and mail it to one of those organizations and receive a tax deduction. Although I'm sure that the benefit of one PC folding for a year is worth more than $240. It's just, I'd much rather give that $240 to the organization than to give it to the electric company.
I was curious about that too... I googled it for a while and came across this forum topic about exactly that. It looks like you can. But my question is, if what this guy said he did, worked, why wouldn't Standford U promote a benefit like that? It does seem like a lot of work, but when you are looking at a good size deduction, why not do it?
From
Another Folding@Home Question! « FPSLabs Forums
¨It depends. You may want to talk to a tax professional but there is at least one instance of someone supposedly doing this as follows¨:
"Ok here is the deal.
I did claim Folding@home on my 2003 return, and I did get my return
filed with no problems and made my payment to the IRS.
Here are the details of what I did and the results.
1. I claimed ALL the hardware I purchased that I still had reciepts for on
hardware purchased in 2003. However you can NOT claim the sales tax, as
that is a California tax (for me that is) but I did claim the sales tax on my
California state tax filing.
2. I used H&R TaxCut as my tax prep software. I entered the amount of $$
for hardware purchased AND I entered the amount of $$ for electricity used as a "Out of pocket expense". It is CLEAR that the months that the cluster was "Active" my power useage more than doubled. And these timeframes are proveable by my NetBoot servers activity logs which I printed off for my own records AND by Folding@Home's Stats page that
lists "Active Processors" which I also printed off for my records to
provide correlation IF I ever do get audited/questioned. I also kept each
power bill to provide an additional source of proof. All documents (i.e.
server logs, power bills, purchase reciepts & printed Folding@home Stats
pages) are being kept in a file cabinet. I will probably retain the records for 3 years.
The claim appears on my tax return as:
Stanford University/Vijay Pande Group - Folding@Home
That way it is CLEAR as to what I donated to.
Now for the totals.....
My total donation (hardware + electricity) was $1006.06
This resulted in a savings of $160.97.
My Taxes Due to the IRS WERE $189.97
Due to IRS $189.97
Donation Deduction $160.97
_________________________
Total Due to IRS $29.00
When you do your "e-file" through H&R Block online, they give you an
option to handle your return/payment electronically (and the hardcopy
forms also give the option via electronics deposit/withdrawl) I made my
$29 payment immediately and have recieved my California tax returns
in about 3 weeks.
Sounds like it is worth it to me.
I am now encouraged to donate even MORE to Folding@home.
If anyone has any questions as to what I did you can post in here
or email me at
fatchick@adnc.com
And yes I am the same fatchick that started this thread. I just forgot the
password for my old account so I created a new one today so I could
pass this info along.
eric glass"