A donor who prepared his own documentation to substantiate his noncash charitable contributions has lost his claims for deduction because the documents did not meet the statutory and regulatory requirements for substantiation.
Because Illinois does not recognize “aesthetic” injury as a basis for standing, the Humane Farm Association and others lack standing to challenge a zoning decision to permit “Mexican Rodeos” in Boone County, an appellate court in Illinois has affirmed.
Only 20.9% of the Pennsylvania nonprofit corporations that are listed as “active” on the Department of State’s list of organizations have filed the newly required annual report, according to statistics released by the Department.
As of September 4, 41,655 out of 199,124 listed nonprofit corporations had filed the report due by July 1. The percentage was significantly higher than the 12.1% of active business corporations that had filed. Limited liability company reports, including nonprofit LLCs, are due by October 1.
Donors of gifts of art to charities have been able to claim a charitable contribution deduction since The Revenue Act of 1917, the first significant tax bill passed by Congress after ratification of the 16th Amendment authorizing an income tax. The value of the deduction for taxpayers fluctuated from time to time for more than half a century thereafter, with no special processing and generally in line with the value of deductions for other types of gifts.
There seemed to be a general consensus within Congress and the general public that charitable contribution deductions helped support charities do things that the government would not or could not do. Some critics argued that the deductions incentivized the “looting of antiquities” by allowing individuals to import, or maybe steal, antiquities from abroad at relatively little or no cost and make their money by giving the items to museums and taking a deduction based on a very generous valuation of the items. The criticism seemed to have little impact on the system.
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Congregants of a church who have power to vote on hiring a new pastor, but not the power to vote for new directors for the board, are not legal members of the corporation and have no standing under the California Nonprofit Religious Corporation Law to sue on its behalf, an appellate court has ruled. It has affirmed dismissal of a claim by congregants who sought to stop a new pastor from disaffiliating the church from its parent organization.
The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was narrowly passed by Congress and signed by the President in July 2025, provides a significant above-the-line charitable contribution deduction for public charities and avoids some of the most adverse proposals for the charitable sector. But its major benefits flow to wealthy taxpayers whose “temporary” tax cuts of 2017 have been made permanent, and some of its other provisions will have significant impact on the work of the charitable sector.
This 4-page document reviews many of the important sections of the bill, including;
Major provisions that will affect charitable giving
New taxes on nonprofits
Adverse provisions that did not make the final act
And other provisions that will seriously affect the nonprofit world
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The federal District Court in Massachusetts (Allison D. Burroughs) has ruled that the U.S government’s attempts to force Harvard University to give the government control over many of its academic procedures in order to save its federal funding are illegal. The opinion governs two separate suits, one by the University and one by the American Association of University Professors, the United Auto Workers, which represents Harvard’s graduate teachers and nontenure-track faculty, and others (called the Organizational Plaintiffs in the opinion).
