The City of Allentown, PA, may not impose a “business privilege tax” on the income of a charitable corporation providing services to three operating charitable subsidiaries, an appellate court has ruled.  The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has affirmed a trial court decision denying the City’s effort to collect more than $788,000 in taxes for the tax years 2012 through 2016.  (See Nonprofit Issues^®, Vol. XXIX, No. 5)

Gifts of corporate stock to charities totaled more than $38.6 billion and comprised more than half of all noncash charitable gifts reported on individuals’ tax returns for 2018, the IRS has reported.   

In a long-anticipated ruling, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund has been found not liable to the donors to a donor advised fund who claimed that they were damaged significantly when Fidelity sold all 1.9 million donated shares of a thinly-traded company in the last 2.5 hours of trading of the last day of trading in December 2017.  A magistrate judge in a Federal District Court in California has dismissed all of the donors’ claims.