The IRS has issued a Memorandum from the Office of Chief Counsel that makes it more difficult for a donor to claim a charitable contribution deduction for a gift of cryptocurrency claimed to be worth more than $5000.  The Memo says a donor must obtain a full qualified appraisal from a qualified appraiser for the valuation and cannot rely on the exception to the appraisal requirement for publicly traded stock.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 passed at the end of the last session of Congress includes three provisions that are of specific importance to charities and other nonprofits. 

A charitable estate planning firm did not breach a fiduciary duty to a married couple by failing to disclose the full basis of their fee arrangement with charitable beneficiaries of the plan, a California Court of Appeal has affirmed.  Two daughters who sought to overturn the estate plan that reduced bequests to them have been rebuffed in a family fight over the estate.

The California anti-SLAPP statute “has failed miserably,” says a California Court of Appeal in dismissing a third appeal involving legal fees awarded in litigation over the direction of the Newport Aquatic Center in Newport Beach.

When the Free Speech Foundation, doing business as America’s Frontline Doctors (“AFLDS”), and its Chairman of the Board filed suit in federal court alleging that its founder was going rogue and interfering with its activities, they were required to prove that the “citizenship” of all of the defendants was different from the citizenship of all of the plaintiffs in order to obtain “diversity jurisdiction” to have a federal court to hear the case.