Opinion ID: 3050656
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Charitable Donation Deductions

Text: Sparkman claims that he is entitled to additional deductions, arising out of charitable donations made in 1997 and 2000, which he did not claim on his original tax returns for that year. He testified that he intentionally did not claim all the charitable deductions he was entitled to because the depreciation deductions he was claiming through HEH had reduced his adjusted gross income such that he could not take the full amount of charitable deductions. See I.R.C. § 170(b)(1) (limiting the charitable contribution deduction to 50% of the taxpayer’s adjusted gross income). If his depreciation deductions are disallowed, and his adjusted gross income correspondingly increased, he argues in the alternative that he should be allowed the charitable deductions. The record contains five receipts from charitable organizations. Four are from United States IAS Members’ Trust, acknowledging donations made in the years 1997 to 2000. The third is from the Church of Scientology, acknowledging a donation made in 2000. All are addressed to Sparkman. As Sparkman himself admitted in testimony, however, in the past he had donated to these organizations personally, through Mercury Solar PTO, and through HEH—but the receipts were always sent to Sparkman. Sparkman contends that the 1997 and 2000 donations should be attributed to him personally, but that the 1998 and 1999 donations were properly attributable to HEH. 16188 SPARKMAN v. CIR [15] Sparkman has produced no evidence that the funds referred to in any of these receipts were drawn on his personal funds, as opposed to HEH’s, apart from his own testimonial insistence that “the ones I have claimed are definitely attributable to me.” Neither the Commissioner nor the Tax Court was required to accept Sparkman’s testimony as a substitute for the documentary substantiation I.R.C. § 6001 requires. [16] For these reasons, we hold that the Tax Court did not commit plain error in finding that Sparkman has failed to substantiate his depreciation and charitable deductions.