Читать книгу The Tax Law of Charitable Giving - Bruce Hopkins R., Bruce R. Hopkins, David Middlebrook - Страница 85

An income tax charitable contribution can be made, and be deductible, by means of a credit card. When a gift is made using a bank-based credit card, the contribution is deductible for the year the donor charges the gift on the account (rather than for the year when the account including the charged amount is paid).²⁴ In reaching this conclusion, the IRS concluded that the credit card holder, by using the card to make the contribution, became immediately indebted to a third party (the bank) in such a way that the cardholder could not thereafter prevent the charitable organization from receiving payment. This is because the credit card draft received by the charitable organization from the credit card holder is immediately creditable by the bank to the organization's account as if it were a check.

In this regard, the IRS analogized this situation to that in which a charitable contribution is made using borrowed funds. The IRS reasoned as follows: “Since the cardholder's use of the credit card creates the cardholder's own debt to a third party, the use of a bank credit card to make a charitable contribution is equivalent to the use of borrowed funds to make a contribution.”²⁵ The general rule is that when a deductible payment is made with borrowed money, the deduction is not postponed until the year in which the borrowed money is repaid.²⁶ These expenses must be deducted in the year they are paid and not when the loans are repaid.

Gifts by means of a bank credit card are to be distinguished from gifts by means of a promissory note and the like.²⁷ The issuance of a promissory note (or debenture bond) represents a mere promise to pay at some future date, and delivery of the note (or bond) to a charitable organization is not a requisite “payment.”²⁸