The Rhode Island Supreme Court has refused to impose liability upon a community center for injuries suffered by individuals in an accident caused by the driver of a van stolen from the center’s parking lot. The Court has found that the center had no duty to those injured.
A child day care center providing pre-school, HeadStart, and after school programming has been denied real estate tax exemption in Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth Court has affirmed a trial court decision concluding that the 501(c)(3) organization should be subject to tax because its costs are fully covered by tuition payments and governmental subsidies, rather than private fundraising.
Unpaid members of a church who volunteer to help staff a church restaurant without the expectation of being paid are not considered employees subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a trial court decision ordering the church to pay more than $388,000 in damages.
The Tax Court has upheld an IRS denial of a charitable contribution deduction for a developer’s grant of a conservation easement on 125 acres it planned for a public park adjacent to its planned unit development. The developer had claimed a deduction of $1,798,000 for the easement.
The Appalachian Bible College in West Virginia has won an unopposed judgment in its suit to enforce a $400,000 pledge from a corporate donor. The donor had said it was financially unable to meet the commitment.
A new academic study has concluded that 7.1% of all U.S. corporate charitable giving, about $1.3 billion annually, is politically motivated and correlated with the relevance of the Congressional representative of the charity’s district to the business interests of the corporation. The authors conclude that this charitable giving may be a form of political influence that goes mostly undetected by voters and shareholders, and is directly subsidized by taxpayers.
