Читать книгу The Tax Law of Charitable Giving - Bruce Hopkins R., Bruce R. Hopkins, David Middlebrook - Страница 93

A deductible charitable contribution can arise when the user of a credit card causes a percentage of the price of an item purchased with the card at a participating retailer to be transferred, by the company sponsoring the card, to a charitable organization selected by the cardholder.⁶⁰

A cardholder may claim the deduction for the tax year in which the company made payments to one or more charitable organizations on the cardholder's behalf. The company is not functioning as an agent for the donee charities. Instead, the company serves as agent for the cardholders with respect to the rebate amounts it holds. Thus, although the rebates are held by the company, the cardholders retain control over them.

For a charitable gift to be deductible, there must be the requisite delivery. It is not enough for there to be delivery to a party for subsequent delivery to a charitable organization. Accordingly, there is no delivery of a charitable contribution when the company receives the rebate amounts, nor when cardholders fail to claim rebates for their personal use. Rather, delivery occurs when the company transfers the rebate funds to the designated charities. (If the company served as the agent of the charities, the charitable deduction would arise at the time the company received the rebate amounts.) This program is designed to allow individuals to have the charitable deduction in the year of the rebate by enabling the company to transfer the rebates to charities before the close of the tax year.